I know discussion forums are a horrible way to gather knowledge (they are a great way to spread it though). To this, we keep going around and around on this topic.
I think the only way to fix this is to do the following:
1) Create a "Site Foundry" forum so people can express their creativity, and channel all of this energy into something constructive.
2) Lack/Devs should make the site "skinnable", i.e. allow users to choose skins for the site, without affecting gameplay or usability at all. (speed being a different story. If you want an all blink tag or JS heavy skin, and you can handle it, so be it).
3) Make as many pieces of the site "options" instead of decisions. If Lack/Devs remove the "ownership" of something being one way or another, then there will be less complaining.
4) Allow for "Official" and "User Contributed" skins. The Official skins should be just a few. I would suggest 3 (Standard JS, Standard non-JS, and mobile). Everything else would be a User Contributed option.
That's about it. Everything else that is "design" centric can be put somewhere in there. If users can make their own site skins, which can be as simple as CSS mods (color scheme changes) or advanced as layout redesign, then there will be alot less bitching about this.
My personal desire would be to see the "Site Foundry" have an active and creative community just like the Map Foundry. Site Skins could be made officially available as options after design and function reviews under a moderated community.
This would also remove alot of the weight of design and layout from the devs, and let the design geeks have fun.
