I couldn't agree more. Flash can be used in a good way, but most of the larger web design companies I see are typical cases of doing what you
can do and not necessarily what you
should do. I'll admit, the designs are slick, and they look great, but function is more important than form, and that holds true for the
SEO side of function. While our designs may not stand out as much as the other guys, our dealers are reporting fantastic conversion rates, tremendous search engine traffic, and they aren't paying for a bunch of website tools they don't use. Sometimes keeping it simple is better.
I will admit that we specialize in the smaller independent dealers, so one-upping the store down the street isn't our typical client mentality. If it were, we would probably be forced to implement a lot more of the "sizzle" features that are cool but useless.