I'm a developer who sometimes gets stuck with design work for websites. Having no design training whatsoever, I find that minimalism is the form in which I will embarrass myself the least, and the one which requires the least amount of photoshop/illustrator know-how to get running. For me, it is the path of least resistance that still gets the job done.

I agree with the author entirely, minimalism is big right now, but it's silly to take that as a sign that it is the One Divinely Ordained Design Choice. But I wonder how much of minimalism on the web is a result of situations like mine.