Anti-pearsall?  

Fair enough, and of
course you'e (both) right. I was once told that a distinction can be made between high-style fashion and well-made garments; the high-fashion pieces are made to last a season, and not a decade or more. Perhaps the same is true of (some) avant-garde furniture ?

Yes, definitely, SDR--
plenty of mid-range and even expensive trendy stuff is not very well made, probably because there's no reason to believe that it will still be in use in 10-20 years. Especially clothing! As someone who has sewn clothes for most of my life, I know this one all too well.
I doubt Pearsall thought much about whether his furniture would be popular again 50-60 years after it was made. I think he designed for the outward appearance and then did whatever worked on the innards to get the look he wanted.
I actually looked through all my photos today for some detail shots of what I've mentioned here and couldn't find a single one! But I'll take some next time I do a Pearsall lounge chair.

I agree
With both the cartoonishness and lack of quality assessments. But for me the rub is that what I see as his best designs are the most derivative ones, and his most original are the most absurd/ awkward.

While looking for something else in
my photo archives today, I stumbled upon these pics which I'd totally forgotten about. They are of a high back Pearsall lounge chair that I reupholstered awhile back. I always take photos of how things are put together so that I can redo them accurately. Or so that I know what pitfalls to avoid, like here.
This absolutely the original upholstery. There were no old holes under it where previous staples or tacks had been removed. There were no remnants of other fabric. There were no signs of repairs done to the upholstery.
These nails were sticking out of the back of the chair just above the level of the seat. I believe they were driven in to anchor the fabric to the plywood back as you can see in the first photo. They would have been going through 1- or 2-inch thick latex foam right there. If it was 2", then it would have been too thick for stapling. Even 1" might have been iffy. So the upholsterer used 1" nails and didn't notice or didn't care that they were sticking all the way through the back and protruding a good 1/4" or 1/2".
(You can also see the sort of randomly placed screws along the bottom edge of the plywood back in the top photo. The plywood edge on this chair was in better shape than most.)
I offer this as a concrete example of the kind of thing I've talked about before, in case there are any doubters.