I know I’m not part of the target audience for pretty sites, but the average user gets frustrated with poor design choices and outright broken websites as well.

Just as one recent and therefore present example, I was on a pretty site the other day and nothing happened when I clicked on “About Us”. The next thing I did was close the tab. As you say, first impressions mean a lot.

I hear complaints about these kind of things at work constantly as well. As an internal product owner of sorts users think I and the devs make poor design choices on our own, but all we can do is manage the best we can with the UX garbage Microsoft comes up with.