As a "developer" of one aforementioned Times black on white sites, I think some people are trying to do this to push the whole spectrum a certain direction.

If you go on designernews you'll see small portfolio sites that require a motherfucking loading screen.

I made my little site (albeit not very portfolio oriented) because I could convey what I wanted to in that way, and I hope to encourage others to reassess what they're actually conveying and what they need to do so effectively. Usually not a loading screen.

I get the utilitarian site viewpoint, but I think there's a certain minimal level of design you can put in that requires very little code, and nothing beyond garden variety CSS. IMHO if you don't go to at least that point it's pure laziness and has nothing to do with what you're trying to convey, but I fully expect other people to disagree about that.

Lazy but also inexperienced. What percentage of developers can set up a site behind Nginx? What percentage behind varnish and Nginx etc. etc.

(I know Nginx can cache things, this is just an example)