It seems to me that web design trends tend to change faster than most people's patience for maintaining their personal site, so it makes sense that anyone with a sufficient amount of work to do who is not a web designer would choose a very simple "just get the info out there" design. Specifically these guys you posted have been in computing forever and are very, very busy.
Personally I can't justify more than updating bootstrap every six months or so. I'd rather spend that time on open source or with my family.
Funny thing about Stallman's site is that I can't click "Fiction". Due to the italics change it moves around and disappears from under my cursor. You associate simple sites with usability, but in this case it's just as perilous as any other.
Tried this in 4 browsers (Chrome, Firefox, IE, Opera) and couldn't reproduce - the text does move a little if you hover which makes for a somewhat amusing shifting effect as you slide the cursor around in the box, but at no point does it move so far it "disappears from under my cursor", and I can still click the link.
I know the behaviour you're referring to as I've seen it before on other sites, but not this one.
I think it depends on the window's width. There's a sweet spot, right when "Non-Political Articles" (but not the | accompanying it) is aligned to the edge of the container box, where I can reproduce in Firefox the jumping behavior described by the GP.
