I think it has to do with East Asian languages in general having a much higher information density, so their designs also reflect that. To me, that author's examples of "beautiful web design" appear relatively contentless and unfinished (except for the first one), while those he dislikes are obviously content-centric and seem far more pragmatic and useful.

The bias is quite evident in that article: "One culture's clutter is another culture's useful information." Being from the East myself, I've always found the increasingly "information-averse" nature of the West to be a little odd.

Wow, that Tofugu site exemplifies the Hipster Phenomenon, with an always-there menu bar that takes a third of my browser window's vertical space!