It seems that many of the more "flashy" designs described by Andres have given way to more usable designs that actually make sense to real people using / desiging sites today. While that book states that author has web design experience - it doesn't seem like he shares much of that with us. For example, the author will generally state that a particular site uses flash or uses animated gif's but give's little detail about how animated gif's could be best used in site design and site architecture.
The author spends most of his time criticizing sites and pointing out what he likes and doesn't like, which is fine. However, the author's tone is arrogant and self-absorbed. Additionally, the author ends chapters abrubptly, failing to guide the reader to the point that he might have been trying to make in that particular chapter. The only decent chapter in the book quite frankly is the chapter on hierarchical site organization (chapter one) and it's all downhill from there.
This is one of the worst books I've ever read on the subject of web design.