To be fair, Irenicus is essentially an epic-level mage. When it comes to the secret lair of mages that powerful, some "advanced" aesthetics, I find, is less jarring than an active factory in the middle of a city. The same goes for the planar sphere; I mean some of the "high-tech" aesthetics in there were because you were actively being transported to small poritons of high-tech planes, wasn't it?
