I just have Eva on the mind now so excuse the multiple consecutive posts… also should say this isn't a criticism of anyone's opinions just something I find interesting.
The mecha designs from Evangelion each step of the way have always been criticized as being too weird or "ugly". This goes back to the original series, when you look at the designs from NGE there was nothing in existence that they really resembled. They were so far removed from any existing mecha designs they put a lot of people off.
I'd also love to see more of a progression as to how this
more traditional mecha design… eventually
became this.
After that any redesigns were compared to the original. First we have the redesign of Eva 01 in End of Eva which I think a lot of people hated, particularly for it's smaller shoulder pylons.
Then in Rebuild the designs were disliked for the different paint schemes and the changes in proportions.
And then finally (at least for now) there's a lot of hate for the fairly far departure of proportions for the Beta and Gamma versions of Units 08 and 02 respectively and the new design of Eva 13.