http://news.ycombinator.com/
http://www.quora.com/
http://www.facebook.com/
http://www.delicious.com/
http://www.yelp.com/
http://*.google.com/
All these sites have interfaces that are largely composed of text, borders and shaded backgrounds on a white canvas. There's a distinct lack of gradients, rounded corners, drop shadows, background images, fancy buttons and oversized text fields. They don't necassarily look pretty but they're not ugly either (I'd put reddit, ebay, craiglist under the later category). They also work rather well from a usability perspective.
Having virtually no design ability, interfaces like these appeal to me. What other sites have a plain front end and good UX?
Unfortunately I haven't been able to resist using TypeKit, larger text fields and rounded corners on my new project. Perhaps I should reconsider, but it'll certainly be more barebones than your average app. I guess barebone designs do make you focus on UX more and they'd also make transition from my Mockingbird mockups more straightforward.
Lighter and simpler designs would be a really positive trend if they were adopted more widely. I vote that barebones should be strongly encouraged.