Jeffrey Zeldman addresses recent criticisms of his personal site’s redesign - namely large, prominent text with minimal cruft:
This redesign is a response to ebooks, to web type, to mobile, and to wonderful applications like Instapaper and Readability that address the problem of most websites’ pointlessly cluttered interfaces and content-hostile text layouts by actually removing the designer from the equation. (That’s not all these apps do, but it’s one benefit of using them, and it indicates how pathetic much of our web design is when our visitors increasingly turn to third party applications simply to read our sites’ content. It also suggests that those who don’t design for readers might soon not be designing for anyone.)
Zeldman hits the nail on the head. The very fact that services exist to strip away everything but text speaks volumes to the awfully distracting nature of many websites. I have long tried to incorporate these principles in this site’s design - a simple and clear layout devoid of unnecessary junk.