Provided that you don't use it for commercial purposes, there is a very powerful extension from @Patryk_F called LabelPlus.
You can find it here:
And, as far as buttons is concerned, you could make awesome ones by using another extension, by @gordonlu310, that you can find here:
For blurring effects you can find here another extension by @VSATISH13
In a nutshell: a lot of opportunities to make the UI less (as you said 
) "hobbystic" ...
Ciao !