The whole site feels designed to make the user feel slightly uncomfortable, the disconnect with the scrolling down but moving horizontally, the slight movement with the mouse on hover, the distracting glitch effect and the slightly too tiny text.

Can't argue with that and I think the language has shifted - no professional designer should be referencing a fold.

those not in the design profession will not always have the language available to properly describe their concerns (and nor should they)

I'd offer the argument that we should simply accept what the fold means to those outside the profession and I don't think any of this should affect how you approach a design challenge

"I’m not designing one experience for one user on one device. My aim is to create an immersive brand experience across multiple touch points that is both easy and delightful for people to use."

That doesn't excuse you from making sure the content works on the devices that make up your 'touch points'.

There may be no fold in respect of a fixed dimension but there is still information hierachy, there is still a consideration for what will be seen on a screen initially and how you communicate that there is more content lurking below (or to the side or wherever you put it)

We've moved on from the fold being a fixed dimension, but we can't ignore that we still need to talk about it, there's a reason there's a fad for those little animated arrows pointing down to indicate there is content off the screen - because content off-screen is rightly or wrongly referred to as 'below the fold'

We need to stop attempting to fit everything on the first screen a user gets to, but we can't abandon the fold because it's not a myth, it's become a way to describe and rank the importance of content

What's wrong with it?

I've been looking at static site generators and waiting for the right site to use it with, but the main stumbling block is it's main feature - it's static and I invariably need a degree of dynamism in the what content is displayed depending on user interaction / cookie based optimisation. What's needed is a sweet spot between CMS and static.

'CLICK THE CACTUS TO ENTER' is that absolutely necessary?

University, taught the fundamentals of design and it's history along with a bit of semantics and postmodernism. In terms of critical thinking I'm glad I spent the years doing a degree, but self taught myself web design once I'd left

I recommend anyone who is self taught and didn't do a design course read up about the basics of design (composition, grids, typography, golden layout, semantics) otherwise you won't know what you don't know

"ego has no place in design" whilst I agree with the main theme - design is objective and for the user instead of about the creator, I disagree with complete removal of ego, inherent in design there is the designers opinion about what the user needs (not wants, needs), a good designer has belief in their solutions - good design is not a democracy, it's a vision and it should always be informed by data but not led by it

You also say 'Design is not a talent it's a skill' - there is no need for those to be mutually exclusive. Design is not art but it is still creative, two designers given the same information and following the same process will arrive at different solutions - why? because there's still a degree of subjectivity, talent and ego at play, which you need to stop everything becoming bland and uniform (arguably this is already happening)

Form follows function

Everything looks the same and that's ok? interaction patterns are robust enough? pack up and go home - we finally finished the internet, no need for innovation or a new aesthetic.

The visual aspects of screen based designs, while less measurable , tangible and teachable are still as important when engaging users. As UX has grown those practitioners without creative backgrounds have tried to marginalise the importance of the aesthetic, accused (visual) designers of putting style ahead of practicality, poisoned decision makers against trusting designers and asked them put faith in 'skin-able' wireframes when the truth is the best solutions are the ones that successfully integrate how something looks with how it works