There's no end

The more questions you ask - the more answers you find. I was reading a book on IA and one of the book's topic's was designing by metaphor....according to Webster.com, a metaphor is a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea. Here's some links on the subject:
http://www.philosophe.com/design/metaphors.html
http://www.uoregon.edu/~uophil/metaphor/gui4web.htm
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/designbymetaphor
All interesting reading....my new question is, with all this information about how to design web sites, all the creativity in the world, etc....why do all (most) websites look and act alike.......did we find the pinnacle of design? or the most acceptable mediocrity?

Typical of most web sites:

• top banner
• top/left navigation
• center content
• advertising
• some nice graphics (sometimes).