Those aren't the who's who of visual design though.

It seems to me that web design trends tend to change faster than most people's patience for maintaining their personal site, so it makes sense that anyone with a sufficient amount of work to do who is not a web designer would choose a very simple "just get the info out there" design. Specifically these guys you posted have been in computing forever and are very, very busy.

Personally I can't justify more than updating bootstrap every six months or so. I'd rather spend that time on open source or with my family.

I particularly enjoy how going to http://javascript.crockford.com/ doesn't load any javascript.

You're right, but that hover is the one "designed" part of the page.

Tried this in 4 browsers (Chrome, Firefox, IE, Opera) and couldn't reproduce - the text does move a little if you hover which makes for a somewhat amusing shifting effect as you slide the cursor around in the box, but at no point does it move so far it "disappears from under my cursor", and I can still click the link.

I know the behaviour you're referring to as I've seen it before on other sites, but not this one.