I think it depends on the type of site, free site, paysite, tgp gallery, etc, etc and also how those sites are getting traffic.

For example, free sites and galleries which are submitted to the same traffic sources, can quickly become stale in the eyes of the surfer so switching things up a little is definitely a good thing, plus some link list and TGP owners im noticing these days, do not like to see the same template styles being submitted again and again.

When it comes to paysites and AVS/AEN sites, i dont really think it matters when it comes to the design elements as much as it does the content, the chances are for example, you could have 10 niche paysites, ebony, asian, white guys, twinks, jocks, bears, uncut guys, military guys, tattooed men and solo guys and you could use the exact same page layout on all of them as a surfer who is interested in black guys, probably isnt going to click on a link taking him to a site featuring white guys and a surfer looking at twink sites, isnt going to be looking at a site featuring bears, so long as the content matches the niche on paysites, design elements can be exact replicas of each other.

Ultimately, rather than design element, concern yourself more with content, that is what will sell a membership, get a bookmark surfer and get your site recognized in the eye of the surfer just so long as the design aspect isnt confusing.

For example, if you want to use your shaving articles on other niche blogs, id look at including them on solo guy or twink related blogs, maybe even an ebony or mature guy blog, that kind of content is somewhat interchangable between those niches and the added benefit is, if you change specific keywords in your blog post, you are going to be able to attract a lot more niche specific traffic also

One other thing to remember, that isnt really applicable to you as yet, is that affiliates are the ones who you have to please when it comes to site design, surfers will buy anything so long as the models in use are hot, affiliates are the ones you need to constantly appease, they think they know what surfers want but in reality, they really dont, do a good job of keeping them passified and you have already won more than half the battle.

Regards,

Lee