I agree completely agree and reverted the Wikitravel template back to the non-box version. The template now creates a standardized external link again. IIRC, that change is what saved this template from deletion before. I just tried to do this with the Wikicities template, but failed. Could somebody else hack that?
I've just done this for the Wikicities template - assuming my edit ever goes through. The site seems to be half-dead again. :(
Angela.