The problem isn't the color per se, it's the brightness. Blue LEDs are very efficient, and if run at the same current levels as red or green ones that used to be more popular, are insanely bright.
About 15 years ago, when blue LEDs were rare and expensive, I built a piece of equipment and decided to use one as a power indicator. As I said above, driving it with the same current (about 10 milliamps) as I was used to doing with a red LED, basically lit up the whole room. Dropping the current to a fraction of that gave it a nice, almost subtle blue/purple glow that it still maintains to this day.
I think the underlying problem is an engineer somewhere was taught to drive indicator LEDs at 10 mA and then saying, "screw it, it's good enough to ship." People just don't care about aesthetics anymore.
About 15 years ago, when blue LEDs were rare and expensive, I built a piece of equipment and decided to use one as a power indicator. As I said above, driving it with the same current (about 10 milliamps) as I was used to doing with a red LED, basically lit up the whole room. Dropping the current to a fraction of that gave it a nice, almost subtle blue/purple glow that it still maintains to this day.
I think the underlying problem is an engineer somewhere was taught to drive indicator LEDs at 10 mA and then saying, "screw it, it's good enough to ship." People just don't care about aesthetics anymore.