Plenty of apps used the visual designer. You could tell because the UI would be a right mess the moment you didn't use the app on a screen that matched theirs.
Good apps were using semantically correct design layouts but there were, and still are, tons of bad apps out there, just like there were a ton of VB6 applications.
Good apps were using semantically correct design layouts but there were, and still are, tons of bad apps out there, just like there were a ton of VB6 applications.