By every standard in terms of speed, navigation and choice of colors. (white background is a really bad choice when showing imagery) And no, you shouldnt copy what everybody else is doing, but you can do better than this. Much better in every aspect. Im just going to repeat what ive said, its going DeviantArt, and thats not a good thing. As for time, its irrelevant since the layout is obviously here to stay(as stated above by Stacey)

Rudolf Herczog
Digital Artist
www.rochr.com