Room for Best Practices

[ConversionDigger]

Been talking with a few friends of mine that are designers and we got onto the topic of best Practices. Now I'm currently working on a blog post about this but wondered what people out there thought: Where do best practices sit when it comes to design and conversion?

I'm of the mind set that best practices are only important in the initial design stage. From there data tells you what to change and test, and you can even test some unconventional ideas.

They seem to think that right out of the box start with a crazy design and slowly apply best practices till you reach a solid conversion point.
Thoughts?

[LeadCritic]

I agree with your line of thought. You want to start off with what has worked in the past and then optimize. Or start of with a test where your control is a page that is based on best practices or historical conversion and compare against a "crazy design".