Deliahthinks: I think you need to obtain the right balance. Something that is pleasing to the eye, but doesn't overload you with a bunch of useless jargon. Unfortunately this seems somewhat hard to acheive in our world wide web. But I prefer simplicity. Google for example. Its search page is so basic and easy to use, without a bunch of bells and whistles, that might be why its one of the top (if not the top) used search engines out there.
