You are correct about the longitudinal braces looking ugly but they are not as ugly as all that water on your lounge room floor. When I set up tanks there are two main things I do, because they both anoy me.
1 Cover the top water leval, with a lid if possible or tape as suggested.
2 Put the tank low enough so that people look down to it rather than looking up to it and seeing through the water to the floating debri and lights.
I have a preference for longitudinal braces as they are far stronger and they can easily be hidden, as well as providing support for a cover. There are a lot of forces in an aquarium which people sometimes forget about, just like there is on the floor it is standing on (but we dont want to go there again)