Great Web design is about breaking the rules. I've got very little patience, so I like sites to be fast, immediate and fun. I can't be arsed to wait to download huge bloated files. It should be about keeping it light. Ease of navigation is a basic error of so many sites.
Content is king.
I'd rather see a poorly designed site with something to say than a super slick site full of vacuous nonsense. We've had a lot of American corporations offering us money to have the game on their site, but it's not about money. It's a political statement against the Spice Girls being Tories. Microsoft contacted me to put the IE3 endorsement icon on Urban75, I mailed them back agreeing on condition I got a huge pack of freebies - which duly arrived. The Net has given me a great release, I'm still as angry but 10,000 people now read my views every day.