Style Question

[Livenomadic]

I run a content site. Currently is visually very simple. No rounded corners, no images (except the logo) at all in the layout. It is a bare bones CSS tabless design.

The best site to compare mine to would be webmasterworld (simple layout etc...).

However, I am making a push to be more of a "authority" in my niche and therefore have been considering adding a little "Zaz" to my layout.

I'd probably be shooting for something that looked (in level of zazz) to something like mozilla.org/community/. Some shading, some rounded corner etc.. etc..

Question:

Would this move help improve visitor stay, ad revenue, and authority status?

Does "Pretty" help a lot?

EDIT: This is a site for non-techies, who I am guessing do not appreciate the simple beauty of WebmasterWorld's design.

[treeline]

Those options are both very clean and straightforward. The new choice shouldn't scare anyone off. Ultimately it will depend on your users, but I'd give it a try.