I think you should bring back the 'heavy metal' thing you came up with the 1st time.
I still love it
The forum should stay pure text, with as little graphics as possible to keep the information folks are looking for very snappy.
I also agree that a fresh new look using colors for the forum is a good idea.
BTW, someone widened the EDIT box here, and it's too wide by about an inch, on a 21" monitor at 1024x768.
What folks were complaining about was the EDIT box on the DF forum was too small and should be widened to match what we WERE using up until about 2 days ago.
But nothing is to be done until you finish the PXE setup over here