Either was I, if I did want to start one then I would have said something else. I was also using it to explain my opinion on it so it wasn't directly put to you.
OT:
It looks better small, trust me.
Your description is to brief, what versions are the mods and the maps compatible with and are the 3 mansions located on a single map or three individual maps?
Tell your friend to go to Server.properties and change: white-list:true to white-list:false. If he intends for the server to be private then tell him to keep it at true and op you.
The design has potential and with a bit more work to layout and it could be much, much better.
The black borders are overused in my opinion therefore making the design look a little to basic and plain, you could change this by perhaps changing the border
colour to a lighter grey or by in places...
He
As far as I know he only showed us a screenshot of them so he obviously can't of ripped them therefore there is nothing wrong in him creating/coding his own?
What's that got to do with anything, you made the images?
If you're using Photoshop then you could have added a whole lot more to the images there such as an interesting border and styling the text some more.
If it only freezes for a few seconds and then carries on as normal and recording as it should you could just easily cut out the few seconds stillness via a video editor.
The best server I have played on recently has to be Fancycraft.
Thread: http://devbest.com/threads/fancycraft-dedi-hosted-survival.11579/
I.P: play.fancycraft.net
Enjoy.
I would personally check out some reviews on it first before you go through with it to see if they had any problems with it.
If you end up going through with it let me know how it goes, I'd be interested in it if it works.