We had a different homepage, were a/b testing different pages, came across the 37signals post and were like 'wow we should see how that converts!' We are big fans of rails and what 37signals is doing and did not really think through the implications of what we were doing. We just kind of thought about it as a fun test to run.
Clearly it was stupid. It was not meant to offend anyone and we are adding credit where due. (We'll take it down if DHH insists!)
Our new designer will take a crack at more than our homepage... we need all our UI "designed".. not redesigned, but designed - because we're primarily backend guys. Yes, this landing page variation was heavily inspired (read: blatantly ripped off) from Highrise -- because these are the peeps we aspire to, and they've done a lot of testing to figure out what works: http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2991-behind-the-scenes-ab-tes...
We're running a "ghetto test" - this homepage variant does not even share a common CSS file with the rest of the code base. It's been live less than a week.
The idea was to just see how the conversion characteristics were before investing a lot of time into making a "real design" out of the lessons (prominent testimonial, light copy focused on value props). Hence the hot linking, inline styles, etc. It is personally my fault for not including a credit to Highrise for the design.. that credit is well deserved and will be added shortly - a big oversight on my part.. we launch some stuff fast (other things deliberately), and this was one of those fast things.
Lesson to us: add credits, and be more explicit what we're testing... ask permission instead of asking for forgiveness. In the meantime, please forgive us? :)