Black Rabbit Warren

I have been asked to review two of my classmates' we portfolio sketches. I don't know if I entirely feel comfortable doing so since I'm having the hardest time getting my sketch to where I want it to be. but here goes..

The first skech is done by Matt Allaire, who is really self critical! However it seems to be getting him the results he want, so I wont judge. He submitted two sketches, both of which he is not going to use. He says he will do something like this
As apposed to this
He wants to keep things simple, and I agree. However I think the Ken Rockwell Design is way too simple. Matt really dislikes the Grey text on black background because of its difficulty to read, however I think that is no reason to completely throw out this layout. I think it can be worked with, maybe create a lighter box in the middle for the content with dark text. Something can be done to fix the readability, because I think this is a rally eye catching interesting layout.