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Jay,

I agree with many of your thoughts but thought I would point out that our redesign falls into your first category ~ a broken design model. It was a design that had evlolved over 35 years and did not have a clear direction.

We make great distinctions about the kinds of content we select for the a-section and how much space and play they get within that section. Our 1A design did not really reflect any of those decisions. A story played small on the bottom corner of 1A might open up to two open pages on the inside. We were constantly sending mixed signals.

And worst of all, our readers had little awareness of our Column One feature because we never branded it any differently than a regular news story.

It was all done in-house with fonts we already owned. So the cost was very low. And the expectation is not we will suddenly win back readers or attract young readers. It's that we will better reflect the judgements we make internally about the value of the news. If we actually have accomplished that is yet to be seen.

Cheers!
mw