I've used Philip's portfolio as reference as I must agree with you that it is extremely functional (although I find it could use some minor corrections). Comparing my current layout with his at this point, I have to say the dark theme, which I had actually tried to avoid, is extremely comfortable to look at. Psy's site (
http://www.aarongarcha.net/ - although he keeps changing things. Right now it looks kind of screwed) is dark, too, and also works pretty well. So, is it generally preferable to work with bright text on a dark background? This is probably a basic question, but I have no sense of web aesthetics what so ever.
EDIT: zombie:
Well, I see your point but only to some degree... The entire site took less than half a second to load here (20 mbps) so even with a 5 mbit connection the delay should be below two seconds. Think you can wait that long?