>Think if someone where to say "There are too many beautiful women in this world, we can't accurately judge their personalities"

I don't think that's the right analogy. It's more like saying "there are too many women who spend too much effort on makeup and plastic surgery and not enough effort cultivating their personalities." The problem is not that too much pretty is bad, the problem is that there is a trade off between pretty and other valuable things, and it's bad if pretty is the only thing that matters.

I, could, agree with that. I must have misinterpreted the article; I read it as good design has become the new baseline, so it can no longer be used as an indicator of quality.

I read it as the same thing, if you take design to mean superficial design rather than design as a stand in for overall quality or long-term useability. (Because it's pretty clearly not even true otherwise, since obviously not all current products have good "design" in the second sense after deeper inspection.)