How normal is normal? It depends.

True, not everything needs to be normalized to 5NF, but there are benefits to each level of normalization. I was wondering if there were any convincing benefits of Design 2 over Design 1. I like Design 2 much better, but convincing someone else why proved difficult for me.

Basically, I'm curious about the justification for that particular type of normalization. It would probably help greatly if I knew what type of normalization I was talking about, but I don't. That's why I posted the examples. Based on some of the responses, though, they may not have been as helpful as I hoped they would.