In a lot of other forums I belong to, fancy templates for posts are the norm. DOHTML allows for some really slick templates: hover enabled information, embedded music, and sections for important information (word count, tags, outfits, ooc chatter, etc). Implementing pretty code can be a lot of fun. I frequently colour code their character's dialogue, thoughts, and other character's dialogue because it's the norm there. I never colour code dialogue or thoughts here, mostly because none of my partners do it.

Colour and decor are fun, and add a lot of visual interest to a post. And that's important! It's a huge reason why we use paragraph breaks; the brain pays more attention to the first and last lines in a paragraph. Colour does the same thing.

Writing traditionally is not a bad thing, but I think [@Jig] has a really good point; we don't have the restrictions of traditional authors. I think loads of authors would have utilised colour had they the opportunity. Novelists and poets alike play with structure all the time.

There are rules to the presentation, and they [I]are[/I] useful, but part of being creative is knowing how to break the rules effectively.