Can robustness, aesthetics and ergonomics for control interface coexist?

During a customer visit campaign, I had the opportunity to speak with a Machinery OEM who explained to me that he was satisfied with our actual range of metal enclosures due to its level of robustness. Nevertheless, he surprised me saying that he was repainting all the boxes that he was receiving from us because he was not too fond of our blue color inherited from our former brand image. I was imagining several pain points that it could bring me up, but his first trouble was integration and ergonomics to the point of spending extra time and money for each product purchased. This motivation which merged with the trend taken by our pushbuttons ranges these last years pushed me then to extend this work to control stations.