I think the photo answers your question. They look cheap and tacky.
Can’t say I remember every having any brown tech apart from the old TV my parents used to have, My first computer was black (Sinclair ZX Spectrum). The closest I got to brown tech is the beige Amiga 500 I had.
My brother had the original Atari 2600 with faux-wood plastic case. Everything else was “a little more classy”.
The beige PCs helped heavy smokers, you didn’t really notice the tar layering up on the case, as you would with a pure white case…
I was the PC support guy in an office in the 80s, and smokers were put together, 2 or 3 to an office. Every month I had to open the PCs up and hoover out all the cigarette ash 
Yes, which I believe The Register called “dog poop brown” in their review… Although, knowing them, they probably didn’t phrase it as politely.
I feel like brown plastic was an allusion to wood. So the bigger question is why have we stopped putting tech in [stained] wood?