“Good” design can be just as much about making your boss happy (increasing sales by producing what people want) as it is about making users happy (cheaper/ greener/ better/ bigger/ faster/ smaller etc.)
Personally I like the ideas of honesty and relevance and authenticity, but “Good” design is a spectrum- go too far down the truth-to-materials side and it starts to sound a bit po-faced and fascistic: “You can’t have any ornamentation!!!” . Conversely, too much symbolism and cultural references can make it a hot mess, more art-school trying-to-be-clever than something that works.
I get angry at some of the shit I see that sells, I also like some whimsy in what I buy and use. Sometimes I like being in an ivory tower complaining that people are morons, sometimes I’m the moron.