I guess what I'd say the "corporate greed" charges are a little unfair. From the time SBN announced this behind closed doors until now, I haven't heard them talk about page clicks and revenues, etc.
Now, that doesn't mean that those discussions weren't taking place. However, there are other reasons besides revenue to want to change. The "magazine" style blog seems to be the wave of the future; look at Red's Army, for instance.
I think a lot of folks think the magazine style is better, and that it makes for a better blog. I guess I'd say please limit criticism to what you see, rather than assumptions you're making about SBN's motivations.
Come on now Roy. SB Nation is a business, they are in the business of selling ads for their web network. Currently, the way ad agency's measure how desirable a website is to do business with is Unique Visitors by Unique clicks.
No one is claiming SB Nation went "muhahahah lets put out a ineffecent graphics based layout that makes our users click 3-4 times for something they used to be able to ID by the blog format as useful to them or not!"
But at the end of the day, the reason the "magazine" format is sweeping the web is it means you have to click the picture to load the article up. Thus a user has to click more to read the site, rather than just skimming the summary and only clicking those links that perk their interest.
I'm sure they've tried to do a great job on it. I think the've come up short, mostly for the insane amount of clutter, longer load times due to heavy graphics, awful vertical scrolling issues, and dead space do to huge photo space that could be used for actual, useful information.
But I don't need to reserve judgement on their motivations, nor do I condemn them for them. Their a business that provides me free entertainment. Who am I to cast judgement on what business strategy they choose to adopt?
That said, I still think the front page design severely hampers it's useability and appeal.