Yard as Extension of Home?

I hesitate to post this as it's so late (1:30 A.M. my time) and when I do something like this I either don't make sense or regret it later. Oh well...I'm bored and not sleepy!! :)

I also purposely did not post this in the "Garden Art" thread because doing so would be akin to posting about hating cats that run through your gardens in the "Pets" forum (I love cats...just an example!).

I'm wondering if I'm the only one who has noticed a proliferation of "let's decorate our front gardens with as many little pieces of what people call "garden art" as possible? Whatever happened to a nice front garden with just grass (or not) bushes, trees, and perhaps some flowers? I'm not against one (in rare cases 2?) pieces of nice garden art, but the little garden thingies people are buying and installing in their front yards / gardens are driving me crazy!

Does anyone here think that a front garden, for the sake of the neighborhood, should Not be an "extension" of the homeowners' tastes in unusual "art"?