I'd like to see a change in the algorithms to add in a bit of weight to design elements. Algos are likely fairly far away from this but it would be nice. Perhaps the search engines could use this to weight older pages more accurately. IE pages with spam ads everywhere would be devalued. Afterall users don't want these pages. General design points such as an easy navigation system and non-pixelated graphics could be get scores. I'm not saying it should be a main factor, or even a large factor, but as a user i'm generally happier when presented with a site which is aesthetically pleasing.
I dont agree with you on this.... Why do you think design of the site should be made a Ranking Factor ????
You said it all, as user there are many things to work around a design, but bearing in mind you are more concerned on Google, sadly a robot can't appreciate if a site is aesthetical or not.
I really can't chip in on this but here's my take: Design can be a linking factor. Perhaps, if you like it, link it. But search engines like Google insist on do it like humans do and we can't tell if Algos can tell if a site has good design or not.
If it means all those crappy fixed-width, artsy-fartsy CSS sites gain some kind of nudge in ranking... forget it.
in Google, ranking are based on your keywords in content. Designs are used if you want to grab large traffic from SEs.