Abstraction is a very important concept in technology, but it does not make the lower levels less important. I'm not trying to attack personally, but the moose is holding him up as the new standard. What Brian does is fine, and seems to work for him and others. But it isn't design. The people who wrote Manilla were designers.
Designers are the problem-solvers.
They are the users, and Bryan Bell is a power-user. The real travesty here is that one of the best aggressive street skaters of my generation was also named Bryan Bell. It is actually one or two levels further down the architectural ladder. It makes the developmenet and maintenance of the templates that your CMS uses simpler. And for the pages that don't justify the expense or complexity of CMS, it makes updating a snap.