** WARNING ** Strong opinions ** May offend some readers **
Though marketing does play a role, it is clearly not the cause of bad taste. (... Marketing is my profession
)
I put my vote in on the side of utter disdain for artificial aquarium ornaments (including colored gravel). I find them to be one of the most blatant expressions of poor taste. Other adjectives that come to mind: tacky, gaudy, obnoxious, childish...
Of course I have the same opinion on how most people decorate there homes, yards, how they dress, etc.
I was at a LFS this last weekend and was sickened to see a very excited bunch of people clamoring about which mollies they wanted in a tank of artificially colored white mollies!!! They had different neon colors in various combinations and shapes (spots, stripes, etc)... IMO, at this point it becomes more than a question of bad taste...
This same store is like a visit to Sea World, more toys and JUNK to put in your tank than fish or real aquarium supplies. They have a whole isle of different skeletons for your tank, including a tennis playing skeleton (I can give you the address if you have been looking for one of those... lol). And some of these things are NOT cheap!
Here is my guess at how the FW buyer demographics break out:
40% - Buy for the ornaments as much as the tank... love their blue gravel and would not continue the hobby if the couldn't have that treasure chest in there with the air bubbles. These people love Walmart!
30% - May have some ornaments, colored gravel, etc, but are certainly interested in natural setups, live plants, etc. The upper crust of this group may dabble in real FW setups.
20% - Prefer natural setups, live plants, etc. Many of these people will also go SW Reef as local representation of FW is typically pretty poor.
10% - Purists, like many on this board. Will spend the $$$ and time to learn how to do it right. Some SW Reef hobbyist may dabble at this level in FW.
So, if I was running a fish store, and looking to increase my revenues, I would take a serious look at the 70% of people who will buy ornaments, etc. Way easier to stock and sell than fish or plants....
To an earlier point though, I think that many of the folks that spend $$$ on high-end SW setups could be attracted to the FW hobby if it had better local representation, which could work out to be a nice niche, if you got the $$$ and guss to give it a go.