That is nice :) Like the color theme. It is so crazy that this kind of layout became very trendy. Well I mean it is everywhere: Small header/Banner, big content and big footer.
Good question. I was going to make a similar point - the layout is pleasing to the eye - but there's not much original thinking there, it's almost a trendy-website-by-numbers.
Reminds me a lot of what 37signals have been doing for the past 2 years or so...but a bit livelier, and mixed with some popular ideas from blog design recently, eg the big footer with 4 columns....
It's a great design. You know.. not always a high quality design has to be something new, and fresh. The one presented at cork'd is functional, and definitely tasteful ;)