I agree with the sentiment in this article.<p>I'm a programmer; to me, what designers do, and what they can come up with, is pure magic. I see amazing things all the time that I never could have produced myself. The best I can do is say, "I like this because," or "I don't like this because..."; I certainly haven't the ability to turn out the kind of stuff they do.<p>As a programmer, I'm not too fond of things like rentacoder, for the same reasons: it tilts the market in a really ugly way. The consumers don't understand the nuances of code, and their primary interest on such sites is price.<p>So, when I needed a designer, I compromised: I browsed 99designs for a few hours, found a fellow in the UK that had submitted a number of designs that I appreciated, and contacted him privately asking him to name a price for some work.<p>Hopefully it'll work out. I think using something like 99designs as a portfolio site isn't so bad.