Aesthetics, high cost or cool primitives?

One of the real challenges I find in developing on no budget is the game aesthetic.  Art devs are expensive and buying things out of the asset store is a dodgy proposition at best.  You tend to get either, "I drew this on my brother's notepad" or " Here are design elements out of 10 different asset packs.  Enjoy the aesthetic soup.

It seems to me that you can build a really good, clean aesthetic with primitives if you are conscious of how materials are used and as long as you don't go for super low poly, pretend that you can tell what this is. 

In this game, the only thing that came from the asset store is the skybox.  There are also a few sounds from Free Sound but basically, this is really primitive polygons used in an open space to create a really clean aesthetic. 

What do you think?  Low poly, expensive props or clean lines for the win?