[ikurei]

I'd say it is better. The first one is very uncomfortable to read in a full-screen/maximized-window browser on a widescreen, and mine is only 1080p.

I think it's a great counterexample of the point it's trying to make. Of course is a satire, and the author probably would add a bit of design in a "real" web site.

[repsilat]

How much of the difference between those two pages is enshrined in web standards? Are Firefox or Chrome still standards-compliant if they set the default line-height to 1.4? If they bump up the default font-size and change the background colour to a light grey?

I imagine bumping up the margins could be problematic, but I'd say all of the other problems are just browser bugs.