All in all a great post!
I have to agree with the screen res issue, even if your punters have bigger monitors, you can't expect them to be running the browser full size - especially "geeks". I'm running dual monitors and usually have about 5-15 applications/windows running at the same time, even on one 22" I rarely have my browser window running at full width. Depending on the brief, I build most of my site at 960px or smaller to allow for browser chrome.
And as Ben mentioned, 1280x800! The most common size for Laptop displays.
On a similar vein... You highlighted "Don't force users to scroll unnecessarily" in your useability section.
"Users don't like scrolling" is a pretty much obsolete idiom now days. It has been established that as users are now used to scrolling it is better to (within reason) keep relevant information together on the same page rather than making users click on a link and load a new page.
I also feel you've downplayed web standards a bit. Web standards are not a "fairly loose term" they are clearly defined by the
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) - an organisation headed by Tim Berners Lee (The dude that
invented the internet [No it wasn't invented by the American military]) that is trying
"To lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing protocols and guidelines that ensure long-term growth for the Web."
In terms of how this relates to designing websites, the first port of call is to make sure your website code validates using the
W3C markup validator. If this is all you do, you're on the path to "Standards Compliance". There's more to it that just validation, including accessibility guidelines and more. A good place to get started is
The Web Standards Project.
To be honest I vaguely skimmed over the flash section, but you seems to be saying avoid it, which is always good.
Blimey, I think I might have just started ranting??? Sorry, didn't mean to at all. I really think this is a great post, I was just stating my opinions on a few things I slightly disagreed with.
As to the mention of Wordpress, - It is a great blogging platform with plenty of free templates that are easy to modify. Personally I use
MODx CMS a lot more for general websites and gallery situations as it is a lot easier to incorporate my own designs into than Wordpress is. It is also more easy to add/remove functionality of the platform itself than Wordpress, I've also found that non-technical people seem to struggle with needing to add custom fields to Wordpress galleries to get thumbnails and full size photos. I think if this could be made easier for the end user, Wordpress would take over as my gallery platform of choice. For general blogging it wins hand down.
I'm currently developing a gallery template for MODx in my spare time for myself and some mates. I'm planning to give to the MODx community as a free template, so I'll be sure to post links to it here when it's finished.
Cheers
Free
PS - Loved the 10 worst websites, I used to regularly use one of them. MSY the Australian computer parts shop, when you've got the cheapest prices (retail) in the country, you don't need a fancy website!