Minimal use of fancy tricks for the sake of it unless that is the purpose of the site - showing off a designers capability for example. Animations, Java scripts, server push, etc. I'm not a puritan - I want to enjoy the experience, but I have work to do. Many of the sites with frames are poorly done. Don't make me wait too long before I can tell whether this site is valuable.
Graphics only pages with value lower down are a pain.
Kept current - but not necessarily frequently updated. If I return to a site with different purposes, I don't want to relearn the layout. Broken links, dead-end paths are bad. Don't use graphics or animations as decoration unless you're just showing off your graphic capabilities, use them to illustrate and add value to the site. I say this because in looking at the web since you mentioned this discussion, I've thought about the web sites I access.