I liked Fabien's old site. With the images that faded in when you moused over them, to give you some idea of what a given article was about before you clicked on it. I don't remember it as being particularly slow to load, though I wasn't timing it or anything. Not a big deal, I doubt I'm conscious of the design of a blog for more than a second or two after I load it, but not sure the change is an unalloyed good.