Ah, a reason for this here site’s existence and evolution. According to a CNN article about a week back, web surfers judge a site’s aesthetic content in a blink of an eye, just quick enough for them to scroll to yawn or hit the back button. It’s even tougher than that 3-seconds-to-get-your-attention rule they use for television.
True, if you have no content, all you’ve done is compel a user to take long enough to sip his coffee and then close the browser in disgust. But apparently, someone who stumbles upon a site will most likely only hesitate for a split second, sans coffee, to leave it.
A sad parallel to the canonical dateless wonder, Mr. “I’ve got all the personality in the world but I fell out of the ugly tree hitting every branch on the way down” Nice Guy.