Why do people think "well designed" translates to superficial and pointless? Yes, sometimes this is the case, but when you have pride in your work you'll want to present it in the best possible light.

Would you rather eat in a restaurant where all the chairs are creaky, where the tables are wobbly, and where the wait staff is doing their best to get by with broken equipment, or would you instead visit down the street to a place where everything may not be new but it's well maintained? If the food quality was the same, why would you insist on going to the place with crappy, broken stuff?

Linode just doesn't seem to care about their site at all. If they did they'd listen to user feedback and improve things once in a while. You know, like at least once every six years.