Great systems in butt-ugly rooms

I'm with Tvad - who cares what the room looks like.

However, placing mega expensive great gear in ridiculously small spaces or shoved in a corner with no acoustic treatments whatsoever and listening chair up against a wall does seem a bit of a waste of all that potential sound quality...

As far as WAF goes, surely a man is happier if there is more often room to accomodate his gear, even when butt-ugly, rather than not.

Personally, the visual esthetics are as important to me

I have always been happy with somewhere to stick my gear never mind aesthetics. If you are too fussy then you miss out on a lot of fun.

Fussy people like fussy. Fussy is fun for fussy people.

Perhaps fun is the wrong word....think of all the pleasure a man can still get from sticking his equipment in a butt ugly space.