You can go on for ever and a day about what defines good design. I think a lot of it is in the eye of the beholder.

This idea of professional web sites, alter professional for corporate as you wish, to me seems to typify one very large selection of web sites containing verbal diarrhoea mixed with images of business folks shaking hands.

Remi is spot on. No there is very little call to use animated gifs within a web site. They are a 2 second wonder and after that totally distract from the page content. But his main point is what's the use of Xara3D? Xara3D can produce excellent 3D images that aren't animated. A text logo with an applied 3D effect can be far more visually pleasing than flat text. No distraction, no eye candy, just a simple 3D effect. Xara3D is also used by others wishing to use it in video, where animation is almost compulsory. Banner production? What better than animation to draw the eye? You might not like it but animation is used widely in banner adverts.

No, corporate sites no longer have animated 'E-mail Us' images, but that doesn't invalidate Xar3D.

As for Intabel's links:
The first one is everything that's wrong with the use of Flash. It's like a nightmare! Why do Flash developers have a fixation for text the size of iron filings? What the hell are all those flickering graphics about?
The second one has the hall mark of a template web site. Everything looks resonable apart from the ZetaSoft Ltd's logo top left. Are they serious? The button text leaves a lot to be desired. But my biggest gripe is the navigation. You've got buttons along the top, down the left hand side and also down the right hand side. And what gives with the tiny 'MORE' buttons.

Enough ranting for now