I know, my chances to be heard by Tom are near zero, but please...
Am I really the only one who thinks this is ugly beyond imagination and confusing? The strong signal colors hurt my eyes (just try to have a look at the quick reply for longer than 1 second...), the font size is way to large even when set smaller. It all is just unattractive.
Compare it with this one:
Clean, clear, well-structured, eye-relaxing, font style and size just right. Why does it need to be so different from a good working layout?