I have always wondered why people try to overload the viewer of a website. Having too much is just as bad as having too little. I wonder if the thought is to cram as much information at the viewer as possible and hope they still stick around to buy something?

I've noticed that as well. Some websites really do seem to cram as much as possible onto the front page as they can. In my opinion, this makes it look completely messy.

I like viewing websites with not too much or too little content on the opening page. Just enough to keep my interest, but not too much that it overwhelms me.

I've seen one of the seminars of Matt Cutts and he said something like the website is mainly for selling something. It could be selling an idea or selling for money. The thing is, we should try to check if we ourselves will buy the things that are presented in that website.

So I guess that you two are right in saying that too much information could send the viewer away thus forfeiting the purpose of the website.