Default Skin -vs- custom fancy skins?

[GSeybold]

I have noticed by doing a search, that the most populated busy forums, such as digitalpoint, vb.org, and others, use pretty much the default skin with minor color and header additions.

Is is wise to veer from the traditional look and feel of the default skin? For me, I'm learning that less is often times more in terms of fancy graphics and such. I find alot of this to be very distracting and since I've returned to a basic look my forums have grown significantly.

Your thoughts?

Gabby

Opps. Mods can you fix my title? "Default" please... thanks so much.