Skimming through user comments I see a lot of people pointing out that the original design showed more shoes than the redesign. This is a key point that the redesign author missed completely - Zappos sells shoes, you can't make a shoe-selling website and then spend more time talking about company culture than shoes.

Also interesting are users who point out that the original site has less "ads". People don't see testimonials and "how Zappos rocks" as insightful, they see them as obtrusive advertisements.