That's a statement that obviously comes from someone who has never worked in this sector.

The real issues here are:

• Most companies are far too cheap to actually employ a designer. The Windows 8 flat design was made that way, because they saved on designer costs and the flat design meant that managers could do the design themselves using Powerpoint only.
• Companies pay for features. UX is usually not a feature but an afterthought.
• When the design looks so outdated that it starts affecting sales, companies bring in contractor designers who have no clue about the product and tell them to "please fix the design". Since they are only on the product for a very short time, they have no idea what the non-obvious requirements are. Instead they focuse on making everything look pretty and modern, because that's what they are paid for. Their customer is the clueless boss who thinks shiny is gold, not the person using the product in the end.

Also:

• UX design is a real job with it's own requirements and education. That's not something a programmer will "just pick up". This needs to be learned.
• Managers tend to have their fingers a lot into UI/UX, because that's what they can see. Most of them have no clue about technical stuff, so they generally leave the programmers alone to do their job when it comes to logic, but they mess about a lot with the visual stuff. Generally speaking, if you ask a manager about a complete rehaul of the logic, they only ask about how urgent it is and how much it will cost. But when it comes to the color of a button, they will have a lot to say about that. And this shines through, as many managers honestly have no clue about what they are doing. There are rare exceptions to that rule, but that are usually managers with a technical background. Managers who just have a business degree are poison for software development.