Great design without designer on-board?
SwellJoe: pg has frequently suggested "simple" as a substitute for "good", using Google as an example.  I think this is the best you can do, in the short term, if you don't have a designer that shares your vision.  Tweaking simple designs is much easier than tweaking complex ones, so if you do simple now, when you have a few thousand dollars to spend on a good designer, you won't have to undo what you've done in the meantime.I've actually found that easier said than done, in a very large, very mature, codebase.  The more functionality your software offers, the harder it becomes to make the UI simple.  I've spent some time learning about design and UX in the past couple of years, diverting some of my mental resources over to the task (the only new programming language I've learned in that time is JavaScript, but I've also learned a lot about UI, user testing, making gradients and buttons, grid systems, CSS, browser bugs, etc.).  There is enough programming to keep it challenging, and enough new tools involved to give me (a lifetime nerd with an affinity for how computers and software work) a relative advantage over creative folks just starting out with design for the web.  I've been avoiding admitting to myself that one of my primary roles in the company is design...but it's become that by necessity.  I finally broke down and bought the Adobe CS4 Web Design Premium bundle, so I have the same tools all the real designers are using.