A lot of webmasters go in for too much complexity. You can make an attractive layout with HTML alone, which has the advantages that it's fast, more likely to work with all browsers, and is easy to modify when you add new stuff or want to change something. It's really worthwhile to learn how to do HTML by hand, too. The AliothNet design is in fact very simple, and I standardized it across the site to make it easy to edit. I have a few template files I just cut and paste from when I add new content.
Graphics are nice, but they can be slow to load - and it also makes the site harder to maintain.
Imagemaps are a bear if you need to add a menu item in comparison to a text HTML link.