Working on this site we avoided the use of banners and graphic buttons, gaining in speed instead of beauty.
If you inhibit the automatic download of the images from your browser Preferences you may read all pages in text only mode without losing anything.
For the same reasons we used almost always only Verdana & Georgia fonts, that have an high legibility and, if not alreasdy installed, are available for download in the Microsoft site at no charge.
Send suggestions if you have any... grazie!