I doubt it, they had plenty of time (at worst they designed it mostly before they knew the actual thermal envelope of the M1 ultra, or at best they know the ballpark thermal envelope of the follow-up CPU & don’t want a new design on the next product revision). This is some team’s idea of what they want.
Since it is really only for people that need more then the M1 Mac mini I expect the people who will buy it care far far more about the insides then the outsides, so I expect the “ugly” won’t hurt (and who knows, maybe I am in the minority! Maybe other people like the look!)
