A lot of the reason for these design trends is that no one has the courage to think differently, so you get huge numbers of companies all looking virtually identical. It's a bit like 'nobody gets fired for buying IBM/McKinsey' etc...no one challenges product managers and marketing when yet another adobe illustrator generated Memphis style brand identity & UI is unveiled, complete with multi cultural inclusive visual…
Almost no ordinary company wants to present themselves as wholly bizarre and strange. Many companies want to present themselves as basically normal but with a few interesting quirks and affections. Getting that balance right is hard, so you get the system that the article describes; it lets a variety of organizations appear slightly different in more or less the same way.
People manage "coolness" effectively for upward mobility integrate the unusual into something that's mostly mainstream - have a leather jacket or a quirky haircut or whatever. I'll spend time at industrial music festivals where no one expects to get but that's a decision and not the sort that anyone should expect a business to make.
(also, you'd do well to avoid the multiculturalism issue)
