> the fact that the project didn't bother with that is kind of off-putting.
Didn't bother with that _yet_. Given the date on the front page, Ibis is apparently fresh out of the gates.
Clothing and styling also provides social signalling and filtering, to stay with your analogy. If this were my early-stage project, I would welcome a little friction to select towards the helpful, the imaginative and the invested. To improve the signal/noise ratio.
Maybe that's the case here. If it is, it seems to be working.