Why would dark and gritty be thought of as "bad"? That wasn't my intent at all.
It seemed to me that she was talking about both realism of the sets (and completeness, the DS9 ones being more "whole") and a bit of dirty-gritty vs. clean and tidy.
That's what I took away from it. Your mileage obviously varies.
Oh well. I can't hit them all out of the park.