If you think the Nissan G35 or 350Z are ugly, you have "unusual" taste.
The Prius is styled for maximum mpg and as a consequence a minimal Cd. Aim for that and you have to end up with something like the Prius. Same for the Insight. The Element and corresponding Scion model are not really ugly. They are just very plain looking boxes. Again, they were styled that way to offer lots of room and a cheap price to the Gen X types who supposedly reject traditional styling.
The Aztek was a triumph of really bad taste over some clever design features. It looks like something that a moderately talented kid would come up with for what cars would look like on the Bizzarro Planet in the old DC Superman comics. Whoever approved the design at GM ought to be fired. The know they screwed up, too (sales figures showed them that in no uncertain terms). I recall that just before they announced the decision to kill (wisely) the Aztek, GM turned some stylists with talent loose on the Aztek and came up with a quite handsome design. I think it was in Car and Driver magazine. Why the redone design was not the original design that went to market is a question it would be very interesting to know the answer to. GM does really stupid things like this from time to time and they NEVER seem to learn from their mistakes. Even Bob Lutz does not seem to have the ability to make GM "do the right thing".
For example, why is the new Malibu, by all accounts a very nice car, so damn homely? Why is the new GTO so damn homely? Why after percolating on the Saturn Ion for something like a decade and having a good Opel "chassis" to work from, did they screw it up so bad that it was almost painful to read the Car and Driver review of it (as a GM stock-holder)? Why did they kill the Camaro just as Ford was about to issue a refreshed Mustang (that will sell like hot-cakes at a church breakfast) and instead issue that stupid, underperforming, over-priced, over-weight quasi-pick-up truck the SSR? Why is the forthcoming Cobalt (again, by all accounts it should be a very nice car) so uninspired in styling that people will have a hard time telling it from a Cavalier?
I mean, what's with the people that run GM? Doesn't anybody there actually like cars?