Agreed! Appealing designs can be nice in the beginning, but when you zoom out and get deeper in the timeline when distributing more of them, it can also be as if you were shooting with loose blanks and missing the target.
Sophisticated and well-thought out designs are key for longer term branding (and are alwayssss a good practice to get right from the start). Whether they are minimalistic or full with gradients, as long as there is a pattern and recognition within the designs, it shouldn't matter much, as long as the balance is (always) right.
Less = more (and more time consuming yeah haha)
I'm locked in "Sophisticated" lol not because it is bad but it can have a mean to each of us. Not to say that Sophisticated is the key for some brands and have no mean to others. So, I would leave "Sophisticated" alone :p