Oh hohoho I’ve been waiting for something like this. Bitchiness well reserved. This was one long anonymous comment left on my May self-destruct without warning regarding the blogdesign post. Great start.

The maximum width of a blog must be 1024pixels. This means with a sidebar size of, let’s say, 250px – image width should not go over ~750 px.

NO!!
There is no maximum width. There is just no sense in that. Point is to use percents instead, which is the correct way.
I’ve been using 1920 or 2560 pixels wide screens for years – and even larger ones with virtual desktops spanning several monitors.

I really HATE pages/blogs designed for just one predetermined width, which is ALWAYS small. It wastes real estate on my screen, but if authers would use percents instead, everything would be much better.

ALL webdesigners have to design for 1024 x 768, it’s the first thing you learn in webdesign. your 1920px or 2560px is a spreadout from a basis of 1024px design. Many designers will design to 100% so that it fills up any screenspace – with repeating background or increasing content width, but they will always start with 1024px. In the case of blogs they will always have a set width for pictures. Look at ANY renowned blog for clarification. Look at the best Graphic Designer’s portfolio for clarification.

Also, if you have a chance, view your blog from a smaller monitor

Hello? You can resize the browser window.
Enable your browser or window manager to show the dimensions when resizing so you don’t have to guess.

Do you think people know how big 1024 is when they’re using a 1440 x 900 screen? Obviously they can reset their resolution – isn’t that common sense? I’m not writing a How-to BlogDesign for dummies.
Nevertheless, it’s always good to see your blog from a physically different screen to check the colour and size. If you did all your design work from one screen with no cross checking then you won’t even know of your own screwups, and trust me they happen. It’s also recommended to cross-check between browsers – IE, Firefox, Safari…etc.

Asking your visitors to click on every image to enlarge is a huge imposition

Is NOT.
Always make images as large as possible but also allow users to click on each one to open it in full size as they please.
Using full page width for images is just fine – actually you don’t have to care about that. Just insert the images as a list, not a table or separated by page breaks so the browser shows them side-by-side and flowing down when it hits the maximum width in resolution.
OR use javascript to autoscale images – downside is that user needs to have javascript enabled (most do..) and the result image could be fuzzy on smaller screens.

is TRUE. Do you actually read fashion blogs? Most fashion bloggers don’t have javascript enabling function or the knowledge to operate one. Fashion blogs are image heavy, would readers want to enlarge every 250px-wide image? Making such images flow side by side is complete negligence of grid as well. The characteristic of a fashion blog will never call for such a image placement anyway.

Automatic Background Music

Well that would be dumb, but usually it also requires javascript to function – which sadly most normal users don’t turn off by default.

So why are you telling me this? You agree that automatic background music sucks.

The comfortable number of words across a screen is..

.. whatever the user/reader wants it to be. Don’t be the judge on how your content is to be consumed, just provide it and let people use their own taste.

I clearly stated this list is an advice, take it or leave it. There are no rules. But if you had one class of serious typography class you’ll realise all print rotates around the number of words across a column/screen/page. Count the words on a line for any book, magazine, newspaper – they NEVER exceed 16 (+-2) unless for creative reasons. Count your notes from school on a standard A4 portrait notebook, they probably don’t exceed 16 either. (Obviously unless you write tiny.) It’s not my taste, it’s the global typographic understanding of taste.

If your paragraphs expand across the whole screen…

See? I WANT text to flow from left to right, cover my whole screen or two, sometimes three.

No comment.

to remind you to put yourself into the reader’s shoes

Put yourself in my shoes – or ask proof from other expert users instead of casual web navigators.

‘Experts’ like yourself can skip along to more ‘serious’ things like acquiring a taste.