i've been quite a few times now, yeah.
i've mainly been to wreck beach in vancouver, because the atmosphere and people there are so amazing. there's usually been an even female-male ratio at the beach, but the thing that changes is sometimes there will be about 25%-50% people who aren't fully nude. it's not a big deal tho, everyone is just kind of there because it's a nice community and good vibes and people understand that it takes some time getting comfortable with before going totally nude.
there's vendors that sell awesome hippy stuff (clothing, accessories, quilts n stuff) and often people walking around selling weed/shrooms/alcohol in various forms (baked goods/raw), probably not the best stuff you can get but worth it for its convenience. police patrol it haphazardly but people there will try to warn surrounding people when they're coming by. i've seen one person selling get busted, it was pretty sad and everyone on the beach ended up booing the police. (i was pretty high on shrooms at the time, but i couldn't even imagine why you would ever want to be a police officer when your job pretty much guarantees that you're being a dick to people and disappointing someone most of the time)
as for there being gross or ugly people, i dunno, that's a pretty subjective thing, especially when you try not to judge people like that at the beach. there are definitely some smoking hot chicks with the best breasts and bodies you'll ever see, and guys with huge muscles and dongs, but then there are also invariably those who aren't as well-endowed in those aspects of conventional attractiveness. you'll never be hard-pressed to find someone you think is attractive, if that's what you're looking for.
i usually just go because it's a cool place to meet interesting people, because if you're there it probably means you're a cool person. or a weirdo douchebag, there's some of those.
tl;dr yes there are hot girls at nude beaches and no, in my experience, nude beaches are not sausage fests