Does this two site looks awfully similar to you? I’m not even sure which site I’m looking at if I didn’t look at the logo, yet these are two major newspaper competitors. How far should you go if you follow the usability guidelines, even though I know, these are done by the same designer š
Rex Chung 
Are you sure they were by the same designer? One is a Fairfax paper, the other a News paper, and the WSG link you provide talks of redesigns of SMH and The Age (both Fairfax)
it is by the same designer from mentioned in the WSG link – Peter Ottery