The sports iconography, clean whiteboards, and astrologically aligned chair placement in our office demonstrate that presentation is its dominant purpose. We share this space with executives and sales/training staff who cannot function without such a presentable space.

But a desk is the only personal space available to us at work - the only space we each personally control. The well-known sanity benefits of tolerance for personal space, to my mind, outweigh minor detriments to office presentability. If not major ones. 

'''Therefore,'''

I partition my desk into two spaces; on the sidebar I have the personal clutter that makes me feel comfortable at work. On the primary desk I have a pristine expanse of presentable blankness in deference to the needs of the suits. It is obvious to the business eye that this distinction is carefully maintained. 

''Does this work?''

My desk's cluttered part is an unsorted agglomeration of old documents turned about every which way. It's like a little unkempt garden where every day I plant a new weed or some old car tire. Lovely! And the suits haven't noticed in months while my office mate, whose desk is overall much more sensible, gets nasty comments about how these things may come up in their review ...

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Office desks are the real-world projections of a wiki WalledGarden.