You want ugly, try the Shorts 330. Ugly on the outside, roomy on the inside. The London Cab of the air.

The only downside was when pax load was high in hot, humid conditions, the FAs used to move folks around (or even de-plane some)to make sure the flight could get off the ground.

Absolutely. Known to the pilot community as the "Flying Shed". Actually it was nicely fitted out inside, where that boxy fuselage gave the only decent headroom in aircraft of that size in the 1980s (which is why Shorts did it, of course). And they sold lots of them, mainly in the US. It's competitors then included

DeHavilland Twin Otter. Cramped, in fact almost claustrophobic.

Embraer Bandeirante. Poor reliability, very basic.

Beech. Several types. As bad as the Twin Otter.

Metro. Worse than the Twin Otter!

How pretty or ugly a plane's outside is is immaterial to me.

But one thing I don't understand for the life of me is why the new NW livery has the compass needle pointing to the northeast on the right side of the airplane.

They couldn't just scooch the compass rose over to the leading edge of the vertical stab?

Whoever signed off on that one definitely deserves to be peed on by a rabid poodle.