The objective of most websites is not and should not be cool and interesting design, unless it happens to be a site about design.

At the end of the day a site is there to serve a purpose. And, generally speaking, that demands familiarity with the UI and ease of use. If every site demanded increased cognitive load from the user the internet would be a horrible place.

I get that designers want to design cool stuff. Love it. But when all the smoke and bull clears out the mission is to sell a widget, deliver a service or provide information. Craigslist and good black and white movies prove that good and useful content is what people are after, not award-winning design and cool web tricks.