Mint looks outdated (visually) time for a new lick of paint.

[MartyMint]

You are correct. the Answer is "It's Linux, do what you want."

...unless what you "want" is to customise Unity.

[ClutchDisc]

...unless what you "want" is to customise Unity.

You can, but just very, very little. That is one big reason I left Ubuntu and came over here to Mint. Linux Mint is just perfect!

[frodopogo]

Taste CAN be personal, but it can also be national. I find every country has a certain esthetic sense. You can see this on different countries news sites... they cater to their citizens, and their collective esthetic sense.
Clement Lefebvre is French, and some of his key fellow team members are too. The French DO have a rather refined sense of taste, and overall I think part of that is an appreciation of subtle things. And for the most part, I think that subtle sense of taste has helped Mint. It really hasn't hurt it in the US.... for a distro based in Europe, Mint has a surprisingly large number of users in the US. I do think that since the project is based in Ireland, that's helped to balance the French esthetic with another one. Actually a compatible one, I think the Irish do "subtle" pretty well, and they also like GREEN!!!

There are also basic principles from everyday life. For instance, pool tables, ping pong tables, bankers desks, and gambling tables at casinos are all a medium green. Why is that? Because it's soothing to the eyes, and contrasts well with bright red, white, or blue things on top of it.
It also mimics looking for fruit on a tree- the leaves are green, and the fruit usually has bright contrasting color if it's ripe.
Flowers are also usually bright colors on a green background.

Picture frames are usually brown... since they are made of wood. Maybe we've missed the boat... maybe the frames of the windows should be BROWN!!!

But if not brown.... colors that aren't distracting help. I've found grey works well at being non-distracting... at least if it's not too bright. Tan works too.
Oddly, for a frame, green is too bright!

The focus isn't on the frame, it's on what's IN the frame. If a frame distracts from what IN the frame, it's not doing it's job.

Also, the rest of our lives is in three dimensions, so a GUI that has some sense of depth is a good thing, IMO.

These aspects of our physical, non-virtual lives DO shape our tastes, and for the most part, they are safe choices for a distro's development team coming up with default color schemes.

Anyway I'm okay with the basic Mint color scheme, except that recently, it's tending more towards BRIGHT, and there aren't any darker alternatives pre-loaded with the releases. Lucido's example basically has the same problem. However, although it's not a look I would feel comfortable with, I find it works well together as a theme.

Also, esthetic considerations, while important, are NOT the main reason Windows users come to Linux.
IMO, those reasons are:
1. Inherently vulnerable to malware.
2. If support of the Windows version is terminated like with XP, they are even MORE vulnerable- thrown to the wolves!
3. Windows is bloated software than runs SLOW, and usually gets slower with time, tempting you to toss out perfectly good computer hardware. It's not ecologically sound. It also requires CPUs to work harder, using more electricity and generating more heat, which in warm weather has to be removed from the computer user's room or office with air conditioning, which uses up even MORE electricity.

Windows users CAN'T be too obsessed with taste, because a good esthetic sense isn't really part of Microsoft's corporate culture, and Windows users have put up with it for years, maybe decades! It's not THAT hard to look better than Windows, so a distro that doesn't manage to do that is failing pretty badly!
In contrast, Apple has as part of their corporate a good sense of esthetics (they cater to artists and musicians, not so much business people), and if you wanted a Mac user to switch you would need to match or exceed their sense of esthetics.

[Spurge]

I love the look of Mint / Cinnamon . It's clean and sharp. It's an O.S. . It needs to be easily readable , snappy and reliable. So far, the Mint team are doing a damn fine job!!

[DeMus]

@ cloudgazer.

You can also try the KDE version. Totally different from Cinnamon, Mate and XFCE. Maybe that is more to your liking.