First off, there are no advantages to either of these formats.

I believe that presentation changes 4 times before functionality, so with both of these examples, your html monkeys/programmers have the potentional to be playing with your cgi scripts and introducing errors.

I am currently moving 2 medium sized sites and 10 or so minor sites that are written in a similar format. They all have to be changed as this style does not scale when you have many developers.

If you want to be successful in moving your site, first you need to convince the people who influence the budgets. Then, you need to get a 'top down' view of all the functionality your websites offer.

Once you are done this, you should be able to simplify and make you job a lot easier. Chances are, especially in our case, there is probably a lot more code than you really need.

The less you have to write, the less time it will take. This may sound redundant, but think of the fact you will be maintaining the old system and writing a new system at the same time.

cheers