"The Redesigners often rely on emotional responses to aesthetics in justifying a redesign. You’ll typically hear statements like these:

It’s been 2 years since our last redesign.
Our current stuff just looks old.
A redesign would bring new traffic to the site."

"In direct contrast to the Redesigners, the Realigners cite strategic objectives and user needs as reasons to consider a site overhaul:

Market trends have shifted. Should our website be adjusted accordingly?
Our users’ needs have changed. Do we need to adapt?
We’ve added 3 new sections and a slew of new content to the site over the last 12 months. Are we presenting content as effectively as we can?
Our current website does little to convey the strength of our product offering.
Does our online presence enhance or devalue our overall brand perception?"

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/redesignrealign

The author to this article discusses the topic of redesigning vs. realigning. Redesigning, he says, has to do with improving aesthetics and realigning is improving usability. This is pertinent to our discussion because we talked extensively about the designers of products making unnecessary changes just for the sake of making a change. Making unnecessary changes actually complicates the products. This author says we should instead "realign," which is improving the usability of the product and making changes for legitimate reasons that help the user.