Not to disagree with you at all. Your point is true and needs to be stated. However…
There is only so much ‘freshness’ matters. Especially at the lower end of the market where businesses only have so much resourcing to provide to design. And by “resourcing” I mean attention span and room to think, as much as I mean money.
Many businesses care less about originality and cutting edge design then they do about other things. I hear these things often:
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“Make it Look Good. No, I don’t know what Look Good means.”
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“I want my site to look like That One Over There. It’s got a Nice Big Thing something something”
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“Move that thing over there and that other thing over there”
Don’t get me wrong: I’m totally not knocking on the clients I hear this from. They’ve simply got priorities and want things done their way.
I anticipate that a possible response to this is “you are the designer and therefore should lead. express your authority”.And I totally agree with that as well. I like being the Design Stalinist.
But some companies simply don’t have time for it. And interested parties don’t have the headspace to accept the leadership and education that is neccessary for delivery of a superior product. They just want things done their way.
In these all-to-common cases following common design trends (ie, Design Patterns that work well) is perfect.