It's a tough subject to understand unless you start learning to draw it yourself, or least start analyzing what features make stylized characters 'attractive' or 'unattractive'. But just purely analyzing, you will run into your own biases. Only by sincerely trying to draw stylized characters that crowds of people find attractive yourself will you really learn the myriad ways you can utterly fail, and only then will you begin to get sense of what's really going on.

Most people would find it close to impossible to put into words any explanation of why one stylized character design tickle's people pickles and another does not.