Hard disagree, and in fact this was one of my early complaints, and a pretty serious usability issue: because some accounts had an avatar and some didnt, the justification was all over the place, making the scanning of usernames and community names a real chore and tiresome.
Wether you like the default picture or not, well I guess that's a matter of personal preference. You could always upload a black box for yourself (or even a transparent PNG?).
But that aside this is objectively better UX.
The good news is, there are so many front ends in development, we'll all quickly find a UX tailored to our needs.