They spend too little. The problems that real design solves have nothing to do with this. Anyone can just pick icons from a library and make them buttons. How easy is to blame a designer for these choices.
People who say "design for the sake of design" are exactly the people who need design.
For starters, everything is designed. Show me one human-produced thing that wasn't actually consciously designed by someone. Is that design for the sake of design?
There's a difference between good design and bad design. It's important to learn how to tell the difference, but more important to learn how critical to success is good design (regardless if it comes from a trained designer or not.)
Sure, who could argue that bad is better than good? :)
The question is - But, Why. I'd bet half a paycheck that the only people who really really care about the new "cool" designs are (1) Bosses looking to take credit (2) Bored tech writers looking for content (3) UX Peers looking for validation (4) Tech people looking for new toys. Normal folks just want all that fancy UI stuff to go away. They would be just as productive on a UI based on Mac OS 8.
People who say "design for the sake of design" are exactly the people who need design.
For starters, everything is designed. Show me one human-produced thing that wasn't actually consciously designed by someone. Is that design for the sake of design? There's a difference between good design and bad design. It's important to learn how to tell the difference, but more important to learn how critical to success is good design (regardless if it comes from a trained designer or not.)