The variation I keep seeing today is sites that lose any left margin at all when the browser is less than 1000px wide (or 930 or whatever magic number the designer had in mind that week).
It's pretty special seeing text butted up hard against the left margin. I'm glad the proliferation of web standards has advanced to the point that this is acceptable!
You aren't alone - I fine huge gutters on the left/right to be very distracting. If I have my window set to be very wide, I WANT TO USE THAT WIDTH.
However, I realize that I'm in the minority - I don't find narrow columns easier to read, I don't consider analog watches "more attractive" than digital, while I love physical books I don't feel I lose any experience in going to a nice eInk reader, and I find most icons to be worse than a short text label. For these sins I am prepared to simply suffer a tiny bit until society catches up to me :)
I don't like narrow columns being forced on me, and if line length bothers you, can't you just set your browser to the width you like?