Hi,
Well you allways try to design beatiful systems, but remember beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I beleive you recognise that from the software world.
The designs I like have a simple structure, if you have to add a lot of stuff around your design, there is probably a better way to do it.
My view is that beauty lies in minimalising and repeating simple structures.
Then remember, you hear a lot of rules, design this way or that way, but the truth is that it is more guidelines.
To make a beautiful design, you need to break one guideline, because following it would make your design ugly.
Then you make your end devices as simple possible. Don't put anything there that can be done at a higher level in the system.
Magnus