As someone who has had a luxurious career based on adding full-bleed photography to the websites of companies with more money than sense, all I can say the look of i.reddit.com is just beautifully minimal. UX is about more than intuitive controls, it's about speed and comfort and I can use that site with so quickly and smoothly. The color palette doesn't even register in my head anymore. It's also a somewhat forgotten rule that designing for occasional is very different than for habitual use. Habitual users don't need training wheels, they need shortcuts.