Lately I've been playing a ton with Rails. I've been thoroughly surprised at how quick it is to develop a web app. It's so quick that it's starting to expose some of my weaknesses as a developer.
For example, I'm not a great designer. This appears to be a common trait of most developers (some kind of left brain vs. right brain thing) but I just can't do CSS. Don't get me wrong - I can understand the syntax and how to apply it. But it always ends up looking like a site that a developer designed. You know the look...it's very common on the local real estate company or the local car dealership that got the son of the owner to build their website. Even murder mystery sites aren't immune to the stylings of a wannabe designer.
But as a Nexopia developer recently said to me, design is about a lot more than CSS.
I've got to say that I agree with that. Especially when I learn about a concept like The Blank Slate. This post from 37 Signals probably sums up why they're seen as design gurus. The fact that they promote this view more than anybody else does shouldn't take away from the fact that they are good it.
By the way, if you like The Blank Slate post, check out the post on how they actually implemented a couple of these into Highrise, their newest product.