A couple of weeks ago I submitted a website questioning my rookie design abilities. One piece of advice that made sense was to look at the "bestbuys", "walmarts". They all seem to use large graphics. So I made some changes but now I wonder if people will wait for images to load on a relatively unknown site compared to a "homedepot" site.
Original http://www.soccercoachingequipment.com/
New = http://www.soccercoachingequipment.com/indextest5.htm
INBETWEEN ? http://www.soccercoachingequipment.com/indextest6.htm

Which one would you go with ?

I definitely prefer the "in between" version. It seems much better organized for the first visual impression, which is what counts more than anything.

If your homepage content seems disorganized or hard to comprehend, a lot of visitors will click away quickly.

Load times matter, but I didn't see a problem with any of these.

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Jade Burnside, Ahead of the Web
What good is your web site if no one can find it?
SEO & Optimized Web Site Design

To make things more complicated, my original design, which was built for SEO is #2 for "soccer coaching" on MSN but the design isnt as pretty as a "Homedepot" like site which uses less text.