Status messages need to be visible.

Users like confirmation that their form submissions did in fact do what they wanted. page.tpl.php currently does nothing with $messages, so unless you never make a mistake, you don't know if your configuration settings were saved, or if there's a red box around your textfield 3 screens down.

A simple if ($messages): print $messages; endif; does what's necessary, but maybe there's some CSS that would make things fit more in line with the style of the theme.