Economic convergence is actually one of the themes in the article. It's possible that much of aesthetic uniqueness stemmed/stems from being in an economically inefficient situation, where you don't know or don't have access to the solution that's "globally optimal" in some sense.

Many things can be crushed by efficiency. If every work and business has to solve some inefficiency (which seems to be true even in a communist-type system), in an optimal world you starve to death.

Still, there are many ways to use reclaimed and used stuff that won't look Instagrammy.