I actually like this art quite a bit, don't find it uglish at all. Sad that it's not functional anymore, how did the collaboration take place? It could not have been real time at the time could it?
I also like the art in the sense that it allows all kinds of perspectives to flow into the image, and there is a way greater complexity than somebody alone could create. It would be worthwhile to recreate the site - maybe I'll do it some day (-:
This idea could be turned into a phone app, and experimented with real time aspects of drawing concurrently, layers, sounds, video frames. Imagine stitching together a film edited and directed by 50 people in the similar vein as the tiles site. I think we have amazing possibilities and the technology for real time collaboration is here already, we just have to have a different vision than what the big companies want from us.