Preach. I often point towards games for examples of good balance of density, as well as elements of modern-looking skeuomorphism in UI.

Of course I get all the usual garbage non-arguments in response from designers who don't want to take up a challenge and actually design, and instead fall back on a "tried and true" (except it is shit) fashion.

Some games, sure, most games, no. There are tons of games out there with dialog options that don't support choosing with numbers, a ton of games where you can't quickloot/drop with shift-click, comparing equipment is a chore, confirmation screens don't have y/enter to confirm or n/esc to cancel, missing/useless tooltips, custom fonts that are unreadable...

These things are _trivial_ to implement, it's just nobody thinks about the UI as long as it 'works'.

I dunno, lately they're more interested in pointing you to the store page for skins and loot boxes.

True, but even the most vile loot box filled triple A slop game has better UI than the atrocities the OP refers to. At least there you can see some decent density of information and a hint of three-dimensionality, which is more than you can say about the "clean UI" desert landscape.