Many good points in this thread. I would add that modern computer tech is very, very unstable. The designers of Baroque art and architecture were building upon

Many good points in this thread. I would add that modern computer tech is very, very unstable. The designers of Baroque art and architecture were building upon hundreds of years of tradition. Web design is not yet a twenty-year-old field. The problem with new fields is that you need to optimize for rapid change. The parts of your design need to be interchangeable. And the audience sees such a variety of experimental designs - the standards are in such a state of infancy - that it's important to design things that are easily discoverable and quickly grasped. Both of these factors tend to favor minimalism.