I often see these 'clones' of winamp and for some reason they all use skins that look like shit.

As someone who still uses winamp (via Wacup) I can swear by the 'Bento' skin that is not a garish nightmare.

https://www.deviantart.com/unpopularpizza/art/Winamp-Big-Ben...

The skin I saw most often back in the day had some dumb non-rectangular shape with a "texture" on it and the controls scattered all over the place. Right in line with the "skinning" fad of the early 2000s, which defeated the intuitiveness of GUIs and decades of their evolution.

Then came the even-dumber "transparent-UI" fad.

Fortunately both those died. Oh but wait: Here comes Apple, exhuming one of them in 2025! But Apple has always hated customization, so they probably won't be resurrecting "skins" too.

I’m in the minority who thinks that having a “skin” in the first place already goes against good UI. Hence foobar2000 all the way.

We may be in the minority, or we may simply be in the minority who can identify the problem and articulate it.

I think that is actually the truth behind a lot of the design regression we see today (and a lot of other regression).