Looking at new site The Conversations Network and redesigned The Long Now Foundation, I realize something I've been noticing steadily growing: the technical constraints of blogs tools have changed how *all* web pages look.

Neither of these sites needs to look like a blog. And yet, they have all the traditional earmarks: the banner like art element, the long narrow floating body, the main content body and the suplementary links on the right, and almost no navigation.

Has the ability to design a site been reduced to deciding how big your fonts will be? After the css zen garden, why is everything so the same?