It's just baffling, do you think they made the games ugly on purpose to punish the complainers of the swsh era ? Like how they might've made the new megas ugly so people would stop asking for new ones ? It's not just a matter of development time or area size, the customization options are hideous, the character looks ten years old instead of looking 16-18 like in swsh, the main city is a nothing burger, and the textures and animations are worse in every way.
The colors are muted and dull, the attempt at realistic hair texture with the anime faces is just jarring, and the textures on pokemon just look weird and uncanny (except for the great metallic ones)