Khoi Vinh vs. Better Design

In my attempt to assemble a coalition on behalf of the Asian Liver Center at Stanford University against the hepatitis B -- and consequential liver cancer -- disparity that the Vietnamese population faces, I was presented with the fact that the design director of nytimes.com is none-other than a Vietnamese brother, Khoi Vinh.

I've always rhetorically begged the question: does Vietnamese=poor design? Is it unavoidable and messy because of all the diacritics? Cases in point:

• Viet Tribune: one of the big Vietnamese media giants of California.
• Miss Vietnam USA: site for the Vietnamese beauty pageant ... which now doesn't even work. Touché.
• Lowes: a corporate site marketed towards Vietnamese
  

In wanting to effectively communicate with the Vietnamese community at large, I need to know these things. And if this is how it's done -- if this is what they respond to, then I guess it makes my job easier.

Khoi / subtraction.com's contents are producted under Creative Commons licensing ... which I think coincidentally tied in with my current wonderings about open source.

What is open source ... something to explore in another posting.