Maybe it was cute the first time, but ...
I admit to being a bit two-faced on this issue. On the one hand I object to the
standardization of web sites, while on the other I certainly don't miss the over-abundance
of "under construction" signs we constantly met on one or two page web
sites that were so obviously content-less that they should never have been posted,
or animated gifs of envelopes opening and closing that were supposed to make us
want to send mail to whoever posted the site, but instead only made us want to
click over to a different site.
There's probably a sort of natural selection process taking place here, and a
bit of excess is unavoidable in order for us to reach a certain equilibrium in
site design. The problem is that when individuals are adding too many gaudy graphics
the pendulum can still easily swing back to a minimalist design. But when the
templates take over, it's hard to get the control out of their hands.
Go to: Templates from hell.