Looks are important. Surely speakers are most prominent and the most important visual. Personally, I find most box speakers somewhat unattractive. At least the square box ones. Sonus Farber has sculpted boxes which are very aesthetic pleasing. For box components, I have always liked AR. They are always substantial looking. But when it comes to performance of any speaker of component, if they sound good they become good looking… sort of.
Many higher end preamps are dated and ugly, why is this?
Conrad Johnson, BAT, VTL are all very good preamplifiers, they are dated and just ugly. Audio research is a prettier amplifier but it's not very well regarded due to it sounding more like a solid state, ie. Not really a tube preamp despite all those internal lightbulbs.
Cheaper preamps can be more pretty. Schitt makes a pretty preamp for about $1000. People like pretty.
D'Agostino by many is viewed as very attractive but kind of weird.