Well if you want your forum to look very cookie cutter you have to add a lot of customizations to the core Discourse template.
I am not using my forum for Tech/Coding related and more art/writing. So aesthetics are everything with how it looks.
I have a lot of CSS modifying the layout and the way it looks because the default is just not good for my needs.
I did decide to keep the side bar toggle on because it just started to break everything trying to remove it.