Jeff,

You've made some great points and too agree that page builders and other visual design tools can cause more harm than good. I think the way that WordPress.com handles allowing customization by letting users choose a color scheme (giving the theme control of everything else) is a great example of a useful visual customizer. However, the users also relinquish a ton of control by using WordPress.com in the first place.

The only thing visual builders have done for me is make it easy to create ugly looking sites. They’re great products, I just don’t have the skills to leverage their power.

In my experience, I've found this to be the case as well. Those that use the tools do not have the skills to truly create a visually appealing site and those that have that ability don't use the tools.

On the other hand, I feel that giving those without design skills a way to make the site "their own" is something that we should build towards. By allowing some customizations, color modifications and other minor changes, we can find that balance.

All of these can be kept in the Customizer (but that's a discussion for another day).