Nige is on to something ...

... The Improbable Persistence of Modernism.

The problem, I think, is that people see things on TV - as in this case - or in magazines or newspapers, and what they see looks so nice - or so they let themselves be persuaded - that it becomes a standard of sorts. But, as Nige suggests, houses are meant to be places that you live in, not places that you look at. In fact, it could be argued that a house that looks lived in actually looks better.
A similar problem is posed by those who seem to think that the primary purpose of city is to be an architectural museum. The primary purpose of a city - literally, since most began as markets - is toeeb a commercial center.