So minimalist design or minimalist product design really shot into popularity with the Bauhaus. It was a german art school that focused on designing for function. People who really pushed this movement in products come in the form of Dieter Rams, Delorean, and whoever designed the classic casio. These designs informed things you might see from Apple and Steve Jobs (more accurately Johnny Ives), but its all really from the same place. What cyber truck did was call back to it, instead of pushing forwards. Most of the "minimalist" products you love were birthed from this era of design and this philosophy of not being overstimulating and giving value to function. It is the literal opposite of a fleuron in an Art Nouveau piece (or one of those wispy things on your omi skin), in terms of the ideology behind it.

So thats out of the way, WHY?

Well 1. Its art. Banksy famously rigged a painting to shred itself right after it's purchase at Sotheby's... and the painting ROSE in value. None of this stuff actually matters, its about taste and what you care about. In this case, the attention raised the value of something that was literally destroyed, because the actual value was the action instead of the visual decisions made. Thats how crazy art is as well as how crazy it is to try to design something that appeals to everyone. Everyone literally liked banksy shredding his painting more than his painting.

But 2. Some people don't want the overstimulation. Some people don't want a painting on their gun every match because paintings and more spastic designs, unfortunately, get very boring very quickly. This is great because it sells skins, but its really lame for the user who is a 15 year old kid who doesn't have 30 bucks every time he's bored of this gun skin (which is much quicker because his taste is still developing).

So if it's not for you it's not for you, but understand that it's more about function and not necessarily about being a statement. Actually the purpose is to not make a statement. And thank the riot designer please, design is an incredibly thankless job. You work hard to make sure people don't notice that you're there, but if you don't do that then everyone freaks out. Thanks for offering something sleek and neutral I won't get sick of that does and will change the vibe of gameplay for a lot of people. There are small notes here and there that I genuinely enjoy about the designs even though I never even play this game anymore.

TLDR: theres an approach to art that is to overstimulate the user/customer, and theres an approach that actually cares about you in a different way and doesn't want to steal your attention from other things that could be important. And on whatever side you're on, its rejection is ridiculous.

EDIT: in comparison to the default skins... well the default form/shape is used on literally half the skins in the game. You get something fresh there. No question.

But in terms of color and details? I think they risked making it too much like ion or "dot exe" skins. Making it white makes it like Ion but older, adding detail makes it more like dot exe or maybe even just a neutral glitch pop (which maybe people want now that i think about it). I actually think it does a lot of really small details incredibly successfully, which is impossible with a busier design.