[dewey]

There's still a difference between functional, information-dense design and a missing sense of design or care.

An interface displaying a lot of information, and ways to manipulate data can be functional and information-dense if there's thought put into how to do the layout, usage of colors, icons and other factors (Thinking about power user tools like Logic, Video cutting software, internal company tools or POS software that is used by many, all the time). It might not necessarily look "clean" and beautiful to the uninitiated but it gets the work done effectively.