> to have a simplified, straightforward experience in one instance and not the other is a huge source of frustration I fail to see how "simplified" and "bland"

> to have a simplified, straightforward experience in one instance and not the other is a huge source of frustration I fail to see how "simplified" and "bland" relate to each other here in opposing ways. Leaflets to join a gym and tax forms don't really have to share the same design goals, and anything beyond a landing page on the "home" interwebs tends to gravitate towards a more unified, "boring" appearance, too (standard desktop GUIs for the longest time, facebook, almost anything by Google -- or, well, this site). It would seem that having less colorful, unique splashes would actually run contrary to that, culminating in the abominations we've seen done with Flash in the past (or game GUIs, "unique" and/or cross-platform mobile app). Or the dreaded skeuomorphims we're just growing out of. Could you give any examples of common webapps that would be the right way to approach e.g. a corporate CRM?