There isnt much "decorative crap" on the page. there is a total of two small images. The flag on the left is a small image repeated. Its not loading a huge long image. Th colors are not load intensive. Me thinks your video card doesnt draw color very fast.
Watching it load, the FR site is transmitting over 230k of data to display the main forum page - and this is
with "show brief" mode. It's moving a hell of a lot of bits to my 28.8k connection to display a modicum of information.
I know the leftside image is repeated - so what in the hell is all the overhead that comprises 230k of data?
That's why it's slow - too many transmitted bits. Efficiency and readability are far more important than glitz.