> It doesn't matter that much, but to me, it reeks of
> graphics made at least 10 years back... I get a feeling
> that this site is made by "amateurs" and hasn't been
> updated at least for half a decade or so. And I know it's
> not like that...

Graphics ten years back works for me. ("Adventure Games Live" is made in the spirit of text adventure games made twenty years ago.) The word "amateur," minus the inexplicable negative connotation it takes today when once it took a more understandable positive tone, suits me fine: somebody doing this because he loves to, not somebody who's doing this just because he gets paid. The graphics are light partly for download times, partly for the purposeful avoidance of a cluttered and "loud" visual appearance, and partly because it's not an area of creation I'm at all interested in (and I am not willing either to pay someone else to do the graphics or entrust the look of RinkWorks into someone else's care -- even if I had final say, RinkWorks would be less mine).

I realize that on the web, you've got about ten seconds to grab the reader before he moves on. You have a good point that the graphics is what they see first; it uses up a good chunk of the ten seconds I get. But, then again, the audience I'm after would give me fifteen seconds anyway. :-)