Site layout

I have asked many questions on this forum and many answers got me to change my site and am on page 1 & 2 on yahoo and google for many search terms. Most of my search terms are long tail terms so visitors should be landing on internal pages.

Here is my problem and maybe I just don't understand some of the new ways of doing things but I don't understand some of the sites I see. I get OK traffic but a lot of people leave, I have been told by many that they like how my site looks and some say I need more pictures on the pages so it isn't boring.

I have had people say that viewers come to sites like mine to get answers but after listing to many I decided to look at many other web sites to see how they look and just don't understand pretty much any of them.

I look at them and see so much stuff on there home pages and internal pages that I don't have a clue of where to start looking for anything. Most of there home pages look like a scrap book with box after box with the beginning of a story and there are so many of these boxes on many sites I just don't understand how anyone finds any information about anything.

Are much younger people looking for a challenge when trying to find information. I look at my site and it looks a little plain without all the glitz of many other sites but you can look right at the site and see where you need to go for the information you are looking for but people aren't looking.

I have gotten so much help and information from this forum but now I just don't know what direction to go. I don't want my site to turn into one of the glitzy sites I want to keep it simple and easy to find information but if no one stays there I guess I would have to consider it. I just don't like most of what I see. Any ideas about plain and simple vrs glitzy and dynamic looking. Thanks Mark