Let me pose this matter in my own unmistakable way.
Two apps may do the same thing, but the app with the more polished and impressive image will draw more attention.
Cutomers, business or otherwise, would rather by a product that looks better, because it is more appealing, and because a polished image would seem to indicate more attention to detail.
The more attractive product offers visual assurances that the product is overall of better quality. We tend to judge everything this way. Now a mechanic may know that one car is actually better than another because of the engineering that went into the motor, transmission, stearing, and everything else, but most customers will be lured by looks and how it feels to sit in the driver's seat and hear the engine purr.
If a customer prefers one product over another based on visual impact, then the difference means either buying the more attractive or impressive product if the prices are about the same, or possibly paying a bit more for the product that they put greater value in.
You could probably take an older model car that still runs well and pay someone a few thousand dollars to restore it to a point that it almost feels like a new one. Or you could spend ten times as much and actually get a new car. Most people get a new car, not because they want to spend all that money, but because it is a new car. It looks new, and other people will know that it is new, so it is about personal satisfaction and status.
Some people will take a rusty old car and restore it, then sell it for three to ten times the cost of a new car. It looks beautiful because of the detailed rework, but underneath the glossy finished is a rusted shell held together with bondo and lead filler. We can't see below the surface, so even though we know what is underneath, the image presented convinces us that this junker that just recently got a major face lift is somehow worth it.
Software isn't any different, because people aren't any different. Dealing with programmers and other technical sorts, we can sometimes bond and sell something based on the inner beauty of how it works, or what it does, of its elegance in architecture. But that's not the general buyer, and management is got its own objectives to meet, like convince upper management that they got their money's worth in buying a new program or upgrading an existing one. They might even want to shock and awe their own customers by showing off the tools that they use inhouse.
