I'm inclined to agree, but it is the generally accepted attitude in the industry.
Programming is design, but programmers are routinely taught that they do not need to care about design. The de-facto training facility for the industry, a CS degree, rarely goes into artistic endeavours (naturally, but students rarely take it upon themselves to fill their skill gaps after graduation). In fact, it is the status quo for programmers to joke about how poor their design skills are.
Good programmers go over and above and study not only the theory behind programming, but also design. Until we start promoting that programmers must be good designers, the problem will continue.
They're signs of someone being too intellectually lazy to take the proper care necessary to produce good code.