Personally, I'm fine with a lot of what you said — except...

Marketing != Graphic Design
Please don't lump me in with those guys :)

Having come from designing sites using PHP and PHP frameworks I'm not really worried about the look of this site driving someone to PHP. PHP serves a certain group of people. When it doesn't they go elsewhere. (I came to Perl.) Everyone learns a language for certain reasons. When a language doesn't meet those reasons they will look elsewhere.

Again, that doesn't mean we can't make this site a little more visually welcoming. I would be up for working on the design (alone or with help) if that's what the community asks me to do. It's the least I can do for what this site has done for me.