Its not just Google - most 'UI/UX experts' are actually really poor. Look at the mobile phone world for instance - it wasn't until the iphone that most people realised that every major company had overlooked the possibilities....

Company owners need not just to employ 'experts' but actually take an interest in these things themselves, which is rare. Otherwise you tend to end up with these kind of highly qualified fools.

I miss Google's early (engineer-led) minimalism...