looks are important, but they definitely aren't everything.

the problem with making looks the highest priority is that there are bigger problems with how the game works that will directly impact the graphical design.  if we just make what we have prettier, then we just have a prettier version of the problems we currently have.  we don't want to do that, we want to fix the problems first and then make it pretty after

as an example, currently in wars many people have to open up multiple tabs to manage what planets they are going to send fleets to.  this is a bad design.  it's a bad user experience and it's also bad for server load.  if we made that all pretty or cool or whatever, it would still be a bad design unless we change how it functions.

what's worse is, if we did change how it functions after, then it would likely break the cool new design we just made so we'd have to make another cool new design to work with the improved functionality.  we'd be doing double the work because we didn't prioritize and plan correctly.

a website is like a car.  if you take an old dusty beaten up car and just apply a new coat of paint, it's still not going to run very well.  you need to fix the mechanical problems first and worry about showing it off after.  plus, why paint pieces that you might end up replacing?  things need to happen in the correct order