What exactly do you mean by ugly? That those small fonts are not anti- aliased? There is a setting in System Settings -- Appearance -- Fonts to allow you to disable anti-aliasing for certain font sizes. Maybe it's checked? By the way, whenever you change ~/.fonts* you have to run "fc- cache" and/or log out and back in for the changed to take effect.
** Changed in: fontconfig (Ubuntu) Status: Unconfirmed => Needs Info -- [kubuntu] [edgy] ugly small fonts in all applications https://launchpad.net/bugs/68297 -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs