> Take Apple, they don't seem to care about speed or continuous delivery at all, yet are widely celebrated for design excellence.

For a large software product to be designed well I think you need at least the following four things organizationally:

1. Talented people

2. A collaborative culture that allow those people to argue their position

3. Leadership that believes in good design and is willing and able to invest in it

4. The discipline to maintain consistency across many surfaces

Apple has all 4. I'm at a company that had 1-3 but really struggled with 4 pre-figma. The transition has allowed our design team to really focus their creative energies onto more impactful problems and much less time designing settings page #32. Admittedly this done mean the less talented designers have less fun when they're working, but this griping is exactly what I deal with from mid level engineers who want to work with latest shiny framework, just part of making good product IMO.