Commitment

Room dividers tend to look cheap. I always thought it was because by
nature, a room divider looks like an after thought, or a flimsy fix
for bad architecture. I think that's partially true, but I think the
main reason is that room dividers can easily lack commitment. Making a
wall involves commitment. A room divider can be changed at any time,
so it exists in an inarticulate state. It's similar to the reason so
many Photoshop images look weak—created in layers, they look like the
artist has never made a commitment which results in an image with an
ambiguous, aimless, tepid quality. So room dividers or cheap fixes can
probably look OK if done with purpose and authority that comes from
commitment.