A secret to a good skin

What do you think is the secret to a good skin? What are some of your considerations when choosing a skin for your forum ?
I found one thing that is very important for me. I want the new posts image to be a lot brighter or have some kind of mark or smth. Like many of Peggy desins. I think Peggy had that in mind too.

Yes, I would agree Julia, also the readability, I have seen many styles which are difficult to read on certain monitors, or for people with less than perfect eyesight.

I'd say well created graphics. Nothing more annoying than a button that has white pixels around it on a rather dark background

I don't like very dark colour and also less less time to load.
Minimum graphics but still beautiful and eyecatching thats what I think is important.

I hate dark colors too, and as soon as I see , i leave the forum. Usually guys like to have dark skins.

I generally don't like dark forum skins either, it's very hard on my eyes.
I've designed a few of them, only because I know that alot people do like them.
However, it takes me much longer to do a dark skin, since I have to take alot of breaks in the designing to rest my eyes. :o

I am a guy and still like light colour skins. :D

I do like a Dark surround to skin. But for thread content prefer Black type on a white background - easier to read.