Agreed. Beyond some trivial basics all these "theories" of how to use style are really a thrashing excuse for the fact that people who are awesome at this really do have a gift, and if you want your product to look great than at some point you have to hire them.
Until then, if you are developing a compelling project that does something really useful, then people don't usually care too much what it looks like as long as it doesn't burn their eyeballs out of their sockets. It's true people pay for style, but you don't need style to get something out there and into the hands of people who can help you decide whether or not you now need to invest in style.
Good design is not the result of "having a gift", good design is the result of hard work.
I don't have a background in design, I really struggle with color schemes, but I put in a lot of effort to design my software, and I think the resulting products look okay.
I've hired designers for a few jobs in the past. Their portfolios looked awesome, they were obviously good at their job, but when I received the work I commissioned, I was surprised how shoddy it was. They rushed it, and it sucked. Only after lots of complaining and multiple revisions did I get decent results.
It's not about being gifted. It's about putting in the work.
If you try putting a nice design on your product in an hour, you will fail. Take a week to research how other products solve design challenges, try a few approaches, show your work to people, revise it a couple of times, and you will arrive at a decent design, even if you don't think of yourself as a "gifted" designer.
Until then, if you are developing a compelling project that does something really useful, then people don't usually care too much what it looks like as long as it doesn't burn their eyeballs out of their sockets. It's true people pay for style, but you don't need style to get something out there and into the hands of people who can help you decide whether or not you now need to invest in style.