But the most important factor in any site is making the end product good for the user. When the Web started, most sites featured a smiling CEO with a mission statement. My personal feeling about mission statements can't be printed in a family magazine. People use the Internet to find information. If a site is clogged with mission statements on the home page, poor navigation and wacky functionality just to satisfy an art director's whim, it's doomed.
Smart business works for websites too.
Although the Web is only a few years old, standards have already been set. I think that taking complicated information architecture and making it seamless is the ultimate in creativity. Not many people are great at it yet. We're all learning. In 1991 a partner and I quit our jobs to start The Great American Meatloaf Contest.