Some publishers do better than others in that department. I can agree (from experience) that many run fast away from any dev work except for new plugins that return more data to the marketing and sales departments who come back with more requests for beating as blockers and direct ad insertion and the rest of it. It was very frustrating being somebody who knew how to build a better experience and see it rejected as bad business.
Edit: they have UX teams but they don’t leverage them because of a goofy allotment of any sanctioned development work to CAPEX which they never want to spend because they often have little of that but tons of OPEX. It drives the “just get it done” part of my mind crazy.
Making a bad design, then overcoming the bad design with another piece of software is pure wastage of valuable resources.
It's really sad. UX design does not get the authority it deserves.