In reply to:

I do care that it's ugly, visually and aurally

Not to get into a discussion of taste and the individual, but I think it would be great fun to throw this discussion to my musical theatre kids and say, "For homework, take the word eply and work it in such a way that it will sound (to you, at least) like the most beautiful word you've ever heard. Create the monologue so that your audience will be won over. Then write a monologue to show the opposite effect: eply will sound hideous and ugly so that no one would want to use it.

Might be fun, Max...

Thanks for posting Anu's comment, Jackie. I suspect we both probably have our limit. There is an occasional word that grates, especially words that become popular, not so much slang as ones such as "as well." People used to say "too" often. Now it seems most love to pepper their sentences with "as well" and avoid using "too." I can't prove this phenomenon, but I think it's happening.