How Much Do Aesthetics Factor Into Your Decisions?

Depends on the room it's going in for me but, I guess the look/vibe of equipment plays a big part and weighs on my psyche when purchasing. No other explaination then for the 20yo Chord power/pre I just purchased. Looks incredible and rolled the dice on Chord after studying their reviews; was a great call. They play wonderfully! Oh, I gotta add something super annoying to me... people, when you post your pics showing you setup, or you post an add featuring your gear for sale, my God, PLEASE don't include your nasty-ass feet in the pics. It's vile, gross and no matter what you're trying to show or sell, it makes us all take a hard pass; it's disgusting. Just my opinion...

Speakers?  They have to pass the wife "not in my living room" filter.*

Electronics?  ZERO  In a cabinet.   Even when I was 20-ish, I never fell for the big stack to impress anyone. It is all about the sound. Use the money for better circuits. 

I don't pick on Mac for their style. Their products were always at least good. Decent, well built and durable. That was their market.  In the tube days, their transformers rivaled Luxman as the very best.  Sound per dollar; Denon, Yamahammer etc. Kenwood made tuners that smoked a Mac. Oh, well Mac speakers were both ugly and terrible. 

OK, I do like the metal case of my Atom+ amp over the plastic case of my Atom+ DAC?  Yea as they sit on my desk, but is it worth $10?  Well, I can buy a handful of 69 cent CDs from Goodwill and get far more music listening from that. Do add value to the billet machined block a Quetest comes in?  No. I would rather pay $500 less for plastic. 

* Vetoed the 2Ce's.  Only stand mount are acceptable. 

Tony, an advantage of being retired and grey haired, is we can get away being a crumedgon so brown shoes, or blue sneakers, with a tux are just fine as long as my feet don't hurt. :)

It’s a factor.  Lots of good sounding gear but they all look different. 

@tvrgeek ...."...I can relate, man..." ;)

Some mornings, your eyes open and flashback to an alt surreality with a desire to spend the day with this on the car tunes, windows down, and frighten the kids with yourself playing this obscenely Loud.....

...just because you can... 

Personally, I've never descended to this level of crud underfoot (hate face-planting on mystery muck) but can remember those who did in their wasted youth...