0.9 graphical changes shifted the vibe in less haunted and original direction and i must say, the vibe of pre alpha is like in no other game,truly phenomenal, but 0.9 just does it worse, sound design suffers too in my opinion. More modern doesnt equal better. My suggestion is to bring back some of that dirtiness and grunginess, and make the place less colorful.Its really unfortunate shift. Other than that, the zip and flappy discs are nice addition and controls are allright.

I have to disagree as I like the look of 0.9 more then 0.8 personally, especially the pixels on the lights now :)

Yeah, compared to 0.9 base, 0.8 base feels so… empty. It’s like the difference between an actual residential area and gm_construct.

The color pallete of the base still does have that level of grunginess and barreness, it's just an actual literal layer of grunge overtop the original design of the facility instead of being baked into the facility's design. It provides a more meaningful reason to clean the base other than out of habit between signals, rewarding a player with interesting murals and a fun look into what the facility was like decades prior. Not to mention that the game prior to the 0.9 builds still incentivized the player to make the facility colorful and comfortable with a variety of decorations, lights, building tools, appliances, collectible plushies and even the ability to add your own models and videos to the game world. 

Also, if you don't like the new design, you can always just play the older versions. There's nothing stopping you from doing so.

0.8.2c is the end point of that part of the development cycle.

0.9 is just now being developed, its got new and changing parts that aren't refined yet, and stylization usually comes after core mechanics, so we don't yet know what the intended look will be.