It's designed by people who cared about functionality, but not at all about looks. Also, there's a lot of patent problems regarding handheld devices. To summarize, practically everything bar a clamshell design has been patented by a company or some patent troll, and since emulation of older systems was almost #1 on the developers' list, a keyboard was mandatory.

I don't really understand what you mean by "aesthetic simplicity", but I don't see how the Pandora could have been made any simpler without seriously compromising functionality.

Personally, I don't give a flying fart about how my computers look; it's what I can do with them that counts.