[cbs]

I am starting to sense some elitism and bandwagoning from the design community.

Starting to? That's kind of what the cutting edge of design is all about. When a design advances past certain middle of the road thresholds of usability and tolerably it become more and more just a matter of personal taste. When a bandwagon (or pieces of it) has appeal, it becomes a wider trend. It's still a bandwagon though, styles in the 1980's are(/were?) the go-to example of things that appealed to tastes at the time but are laughable in retrospect.

Design is important in giving products pleasant appearances and interactions, but it's also capable of turning people insufferable. http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57508907-71/at-apple-hq-ey...