> For example, I've never used the events feature that you find so important, and before I saw the NYT design I had no idea that you could create an account. If I didn't know it, maybe there are millions of other people who don't know about it either -- a good reason why the feature might be under-utilized.

And that proves my point. The NY Times redesign dedicates lots of space to a new feature that relies on a feature that no one uses. Craigslist is designed specifically to be anonymous to the point where you don't require an account. Putting something that personalizes an account goes against one of the things that made them popular in the first place.

This reply shows that you are posting on the redesign without doing any research. I don't use the events feature, but if you bothered to do any research before commenting then you would see that it is quite popular.

The most cursory research on what the posts are will tell you that most people use the site to get/get rid of something (e.g., jobs, items, sex), or for the community features.

A design that requires marginalizes one of these things to the least visible location is a disaster.