Let's face it, drupal.org has never been a good looking site to begin with for as long as I can remember (since version 4) and until now one could write off such lack of aesthetic as a no-nonsense utilitarian design approach akin to Craigslist or Google's front page,
It's truly bewildering how a group of tech savvy stakeholders could ever approve such an ugly design that departs from the utilitarian aesthetic by including random photos and color palettes.
This the opposite of the proverbial "putting lipstick on a pig" as it looks like the pig took a mud bath, how can anyone consider this an improvement is beyond comprehension.
Sure, tastes are subjective and this is a volunteered effort, but a quick visit to similar open-source projects like plone.org, joomla.org or typo3.org can shed some light on current design trends, wordpress.com was intentionally excluded because it'd be an unfair comparison.
Forgive the harsh criticism and don't shoot the messenger, someone had to point out the emperor is naked.