Andy's redesign is a disaster for various reasons stated by others, but this is possibly the most important and underlying reason for its failure: The existing design visually demonstrates that 'there's a lot going on here'. His does not.
He failed to communicate the good type of busyness in his re-imagining -- the redesign makes the site look like a five-articles-a-day blog.
Exactly. nytimes.com gives the visual impression of being dense with fresh content and that's what keeps news junkies coming back for more.
His redesign not only lacks compelling visuals (huffingtonpost.com wins that category, sorry but tabloid style is here to stay) but also advertising: still a necessary evil, got to make room for the ads.
He failed to communicate the good type of busyness in his re-imagining -- the redesign makes the site look like a five-articles-a-day blog.