ha! you have been either reading shinn web site carefully or you are mature enough to remember '76 races :)
The Player has been designed based on the race car, sponsored by John Player & Sons hence the boards name :)

Waxman, "cool" is only a personal, aesthetics perspective, isn't it :) For you those boards don't look "cool", for me, they do. Especially The Player :)
I haven't done any major surveys with its questions based on shinn's design hence I cannot argue with your claim about the "minority of riders" thing. What I can tell you that my northern hemisphere mates - majority of them like it, minority don't. Southern hemisphere - majority of my mates don't like it :)
The analogy could come from clothing, cars, furniture design ex Rip Curl have a different design for Hong Kong market and our, Aussie market. Also, from kiting market perspective - look at Underground - boards have a different design for America and for Europe. FLX for me looks good in European design but it is ugly (for me) for the American market. My US mate loves the US, FLX design :)
Perhaps Shinn, in the future will come to the same point as Underground. Design a board for a specific market to increase customers satisfaction/sale. I don't know and I don't care to be honest. I just want to try one :)