All it shouts to me is that they were probably more focused on more important things. My mantra is functionality before design.

I've seen a bunch of stuff submitted here to HN that was nothing more than a landing page with a sign up form. I've rarely (if not never) signed up.

However, give me a page with a working proof-of-concept, I'll likely sign up regardless if it's built on default Bootstrap styling.

Reminds me of the days when people's biggest complaints about Reddit was that it looked bad.