Then understand that you're not the average surfer. The problem with web geeks (especially UI web geeks) is that they presume their love for cleanness and elegance is a universal desire for all web users - this is simply not true.

Obviously I can't share any proprietary data here with you - but I work for a company that runs one of the largest sites anywhere - and our UI is kind of ugly, and definitely very busy. It is also the optimal UI - and we have teams of people relentlessly testing alternatives day in and day out. There's designing to your own aesthetic, then there's designing by user input, then there's designing by real live data from tens of millions of people.