Yeah, we hope to make the new site system skinnable so people could pick a different skin to view the site in if they wanted.
To write a web design for such a system, it helps to know PHP, but you really don't have to. Anyone who's used HTML with CSS can do it.
Most of it is just a raw HTML / CSS layout with some content inserted on the fly with PHP. You just insert some PHP tags where certain items have to appear. (For example, you end up writing something like this to insert the main content of the page, which gets expanded by the page engine to display the content:
<?php echo $this->data("article"); ?>
Things like WD and the gamers list will be handled automatically by the skin system, and no extra work will be needed.
For those of you who would be interested in creating a website skin, PM me. I'll get you started.