It can hardly be called resistance to improvement, when everyone do improve it - just in their own ways. The default isn't some fashion statement, some aesthete that's objectively good (though I am sure some people do subjectively like it). But it's meant to be sort of a least presumptuous blank state that everyone can radically overhaul. So arguably it's an encouragement for improvement just like everything else in Emacs, which focuses on making the tools for improvement easier.
It's just that "improvement" as a matter of public consensus that everyone can agree on to elect the next blank slate has been to impossible to settle on. But the counterculture here broadly might be extreme reluctance to inconvenience even a minority of existing users, in pursuit of market share/growth.
It's just that "improvement" as a matter of public consensus that everyone can agree on to elect the next blank slate has been to impossible to settle on. But the counterculture here broadly might be extreme reluctance to inconvenience even a minority of existing users, in pursuit of market share/growth.