I was going to avoid this debate, but oh well that's what these forums are for
I don't think there are too many people that DON'T realize graphics of any kind slow down the loading of a page. My mom, who at one point in her life actually thought she could get sick from an online virus, knows that pages load slower becuase of graphics. She knows this becuase they load in last and all the text pops up right away.
While you're correct fryke, in that 200K+ images and Flash movies are a slow down, does it really matter for about 70% of the sites out there?
What people are forgetting is that, while "text-only" pages started the internet, it wasn't long after that in which graphic intensive websites took over. These sites pushed the popularity of the internet. In the 14.4 days, simply putting more than one graphic on a page was considered "graphic intensive". Bandwidth increased, and so did the meaning of "graphic intesive" websites. You were lucky to get more than two clicks from a viewer of your site. But somehow through all that, "Graphic Intensive" websites were in demand.
So I find myself making a point that GrBear made earlier in his post. Speed isn't everything. For some of us, the interenet is about visual representation of information. A very art gallery framed in our 21" Trinitron monitors at home. How great is that?
While it's true that "faster is faster" I don't want the speed of my browser to be the ONLY consideration in using it. I want the buttons to look nice, I want the features and functionality, I want the ability to load interesting content on it, such as Flash, and I want the content load of each site to be relative to its subject matter. (it also helps if I can respect the company that produced the browser too... but I won't get into that).
I enjoy Flash, which is why I might be taking fryke's post a little too much to heart, but I reserve my supporting the program for another thread.
That being said, I don't wish to ignore the speed issue either. Developers need to remember to keep speed in mind when servicing their clients. etc.