What is it about this one that you like more?
Can you elaborate on what the problem in the corners is?
I completely agree, which is why I have been putting so much emphasis on vector based designs. They are much faster and easier to make with free software that doesn’t take too long to learn. Plus we can easily share working files. There are a lot of people willing to contribute but so far we have only seen one person here try something with a 3D model. Its a good indicator that vector base / flat designs will make things easier for devs. Flat designs are also very easy to use which is why after decades of research in UI/UX design, the vast majority of modern DAWs and Plugins use this style as you said
As for the 3D route, the aim would be to create assets and implement them into the SDK so a user can simply choose the enclosure, the colour, the knobs, controls, titles and upload images that would be a kind of colour layer, so the highlights and shadows of the render are automatically applied to it without ever having to touch the 3D software. This, of course, will need some time
It’s been on the cards for a while 
very important!
You are completely right. We have a lot of work to do still on that front
I get that feeling a bit too. This discussion has been going of a lot of assumptions until now which I think is okay because we are just spitballing ideas. I think that soon we should start to do some polling/surveying of users to find out what they value most in the plugin GUI designs