@srs If memory serves me right, they had some kind of UX work done, but the community takeaway from that seems to have been <provide less functionality,> so it doesn't seem to have helped a lot.
Also, that was right around the time that distros stopped shipping GNOME and started shipping customized GNOME forks.
@WomanCorn makes sense to me, as long as the design isn't too big a part of your product at least. I suppose they only had the graphic design done?
I feel that this does not work anymore once we consider more holistic "UX design". One can't outsource one's core value proposition because the fair price for that would be the value of the whole company. This should apply to open source projects as well.
This might be unfair, but I feel that some apps are "basically nothing but UX".