Hate is a strong word, but I really really really don't like Brandon Sanderson's website design. It's ugly and hard to navigate. The only thing that makes it tolerable is that, almost against all odds, the text is actually legible.
Your revised design is decent, though the large background image feels unnecessary. Of your friends' designs I like the first the best, though it's not very expandable so you'll have a hard time adding content down the road. All of them have the feel of a video game fan site, which I assume is not what you're looking for in a writer's site.
Also, there's the issue of the title. Are you sure you want to use your forum handle for your professional site (especially when your handle is based on a character from the Lord of the Rings)? Anonymity is a fine thing for casual chatrooms like this one, but for a site you plan to put on a business card, it works against you. You want people to know who you are.
I'm trying to come up with a good example design to point you to, but I'm coming up pretty dry. Authors are not known for having good web sites; in fact, they're almost uniformly awful. Dragonmount is decent, but it's not an author's site.
Orson Scott Card's site used to be pretty darn good...in 1996. The basic design hasn't changed since ancient times, and it's now an abominable hodgepodge of conflicting design language and visual clutter. I'm a fan of
Dan Wells' web site design; it communicates his genre through the design, and it's both clean and usable. The only downside is that it's a bit pedestrian, but I'll take that to brandonsanderson.com any day of the week.
Good on you for trying to break the mold. I hope I've been at least a bit constructive with my criticism.