Great point, Nathan. For my first four years I was designing for Windows and never had to mess with the visual style either; we mostly inherited it from Windows but later a central visual design team established a visual style for all of Autodesk’s products. I too felt relieved not having to worry about it and focusing more on the flows and interactions.

Today I will admit my perspective has become more influenced as I’m in an agency helping startups establish their visual standards alongside designing the interactions. So I think your head is totally in the right place.