The thing is, the flat designs created in 10 hours don't look good.
Google's semi-flat interface that they're pushing out everywhere is good design. It's clean, simple, but also contains sufficient visual cues to be usable at the same level as 3D designs.
Any design that's worth a damn will take a while to create, regardless of whether it's flat, semi-flat, or 3D.
I created these: http://shoutkey.com/excavate, http://shoutkey.com/modify in quite a short time. I could have paid $5000 for a professional design, but it would be (let's say) 20% better. For my project, it doesn't make sense to pay $5000 for 20% better design.
Where are you getting $5000 and 20% from? It would take a skilled designer no more than an hour or two to polish that up. I mean, you switch from all-caps title text to regular case - why? YOU could polish that up and make it look immensely better with maybe 15 minutes more work and thought.
I already don't like to-do apps, but I wouldn't even download one that didn't look fun, interesting, new and beautiful. Simple as that.
The $5000 and 20% were just illustrative. I'm not going to polish it up, because I decided to go with the second design.
You don't seem to like it but I think it looks quite good. Majority of people who've seen it liked it as well, but you can't please everyone of course.
Google's semi-flat interface that they're pushing out everywhere is good design. It's clean, simple, but also contains sufficient visual cues to be usable at the same level as 3D designs.
Any design that's worth a damn will take a while to create, regardless of whether it's flat, semi-flat, or 3D.