I agree, but there's levels to it though. A redesign almost never means learning new visual languages, whatever that means. Low-level elements like hyperlinks will always be presented as underlined text, buttons as boxes with centered text, and so on. Then there's low-level structures such as sidebars, tabs, collapsible menus, etc. which again rarely change and that's a good thing. I wouldn't call it unoriginal but conventional.
A "proper" redesign then becomes finding the right and intuitive structure for the right type of content. Changing the appearance of the same content in the same structure is more of a reskin, which is what we see most of the time. And yes, sadly in the last years the trend has been: low contrast body text against an obligatory bright color for elements/illustrations/icons, rounded corners, and padding everywhere.
A "proper" redesign then becomes finding the right and intuitive structure for the right type of content. Changing the appearance of the same content in the same structure is more of a reskin, which is what we see most of the time. And yes, sadly in the last years the trend has been: low contrast body text against an obligatory bright color for elements/illustrations/icons, rounded corners, and padding everywhere.