As I recall, Greenspun skewered Siegel. Siegel advocated a two- or three-stage "entry portal" to your site in one version of his "Killer" books, and Greenspun thought that was daft.
I appreciate Nielsen's approach quite a lot. We could do a lot worse than a return to "usability" on the Web. We've gone to a lot of effort to recreate a substantial subset of what Flash brought to the table, but do you really want your photos and text blocks flying in as you scroll? It's cool the first time you see it, but after that? Does anybody ever say "man, this site has great information, I just wish it would bounce around my screen like a Jack Russell terrier."
> Does anybody ever say "man, this site has great information, I just wish it would bounce around my screen like a Jack Russell terrier."
I always find myself thinking "man if only this website would hijack my native browser scrolling...but terribly". Websites that don't hijack scrolling are just too useful and easy to use. Even better is when paragraphs fade-in as I scroll! Oh man I just love seeing shit jump around as I'm trying to read. It's so calming and doesn't induce seasickness at all!
Maybe the people implementing such things never accidentally saw off their fingertips. /s