I swear, web design, specifically IA or UX work is going to eat itself. One day you design navigation this way, then we're told that it doesn't work. One such moment occurs in Henrik Olsen's article Navigation blindness.
Most web development projects put a lot of effort into the design of navigation tools. But fact is that people tend to ignore these tools. They are fixated on getting what they came for and simply click on links or hit the back button to get there.
One thing that has had an impact on navigation habits is RSS, feedreaders, content aggregators, call them what you will. I have talked about the impact of RSS on design previously and I think it is really tiem to start looking at how people have changed the way they use sites. The USYD site was designed 2 years ago, a long time in web-time. RSS use has exploded since then. Perhaps an aim for the new year could be to really reappraise the navigation systems we use in our templates and see how we can better accommodate changing user habits.
Just one other thing, if this article is right and people don't need to be given the "move anywhere from here" option (I.e. links to all other parts of the site from any given page) then the design of pages and the IA in general moves more toward application-type design. That is, designing for a user who is very focussed in intent, oblivious to anything not directly involved in the task at hand and annoyed by navigation clutter.
Going to have to do a lot more thinking about this, I'm still on holidays, you didn't expect a thesis did you??
--------