Personally, I find the new design conveys a more relaxing experience although I'd like to see some of the fonts grow a bit. By modern, I refer to a different online world than #000 against #FFF and skeuo approaches. I'm not saying, those days are over completely, but fresher approaches are nice too.

Let's face it - design will continue to morph based upon different philosophies and whims, just as fashion does. Some visions are worse than others but some are implemented in pretty clever ways. I like the way DDG went with theirs.

For a modern web property or search engine competing against the likes of Google, what timdiggerm mentioned in a reply nails it. Sticking with an older design philosophy conveys a negative image for many users.

However, other properties going flat and subdued do not necessarily get my attention just because everyone else is doing it. This one does though because they did a lot of things right. The more I use next.duckduckgo.com the more I appreciate the small details that were thought out.