Few people hate or love the design of the ford taurus, for example. And, few would call it great design or horrible design. It emits a weak signal.
I'd argue that if kamen changed the segway design it would just appeal to a different set of people, it wouldn't really be better. There is nothing wrong with the design. It is simple and without stupid frills.
Why are we allowed to critique a web site for having small type and a shitty font and bad colors, but we can't criticize people with poor fashion sense? They're one and the same. The fact that fashion is subject to marketing doesn't make it inherently worthless.
For once I can't disagree with a thing Paul said in this essay. When you ride a Segway, you look lazy. You're expending no muscle and you're not going particularly quickly. If you want to go faster, ride a bike, or jog. By riding a Segway you tell me you're too slobby to learn to job. That's not going to be the truth in all situations, but that's what it says nonetheless.
Because websites are there to be looked at, people who are just going about their lives are not. Websites with small type and bad colours are hard to read but supposed to be read, people's clothing has minor effects on their ability to do what they're doing in most cases. Websites don't have feelings, people do. Many websites are built by designers who ought to be good at design, there's no such expectation that us ordinary people would or should have such skills. Website type is about usability, fashion is about taste - which is subjective and individual. With a website it matters what experience the viewer has, with a person it matters what experience the person themselves has.
They're not one and the same, they're different in just about every respect I can think of.
Whether your or my ideal includes it, a deft sense of social signalling is one of the precise things we humans are both (a) good at and (b) judgmental of. On the African savanna, it evolved as an incredibly useful and efficient tool for deciding if another human was friend or foe.