I've heard this anti-aesthetic argument before and I don't buy it. There's a reason companies like Stripe are lauded for their design efforts while Google comes out with material design...
If there's anything less scientific than the material design docs I want you to send it to me. Design hinges on aesthetics. You can't just ignore it (well you can, but you might end up with something that looks like material design).
Not GP, but where exactly was their argument anti-aesthetic? Art =/= aesthetics, Design =/= art. GP said:
design trends are just manifestations of a particular temporal affinity towards one aesthetic or another which sounds reasonable to me, considering recent trends towards flat/ish designs
Maybe you'd like to address his/her points instead of creating strawmen?
