I think dropping the design dependency is a GREAT IDEA!
It is an exciting step for a site to move on and not have that nasty Beta tag attached to their moniker. Awful, I tell you, just awful!
One thing I'd like to mention which may help with the design dependency is this. With all the gorilla coders and design freaks we have around here, why not offer up what exactly is needed for the design items and I bet you'd have people beating down your door to help you at no charge. This would do the following:
- Alleviate the backlog.
- Allow the design dependency not to be a big deal.
- Get complete buy-in from the graduating site.
- Provide more excitement for the entire SE network.
I know not everyone would be up for this, but I think if you were to talk to the mods on the soon to be graduated sites, they could make it happen. I personally can see a lot of the design elements which need to be changed, but I'm sure I'm not seeing all of them. If a complete list of these items were published, or at the minimum, were given to the mods of these sites, suitable design people could be rounded up from the communities at large and the tasks would be completed. It may be that what is produced might not be completely usable, BUT, it would probably get it to a point where only tweaking would be necessary for the completion of the design. Would site graduation still need to be dependent upon these? Not at all, but it would bring the excitement and community involvement into the mix.
Now, I get it if you run a Union shop ...