in reply to PerlMonks site design
I am against a completely new layout. Many of us have gotten so used to the current layout, that forcing a new one would confuse many of us.
Also, the current layout has some big advantages. The most important is probably the code to content ratio -- or the amount of markup used to generate something(in this case). You will notice that there is very little "trash" code -- code which serves no other purpose than unnecessary tweaks -- is present. Therefore, download times are faster, and render times aren't that bad, actually.
Another thing I hate on many sites is the many kilobytes of huge stylesheets and javascript libraries that must be downloaded every time. On a related note, did you know that PerlMonks displays almost perfectly in IE4, on Windoze 98? Altering it would ruin that viewing experience.
Lastly, the majority of us are programmers, and not so much end-users. We care more about seeing the content than the endless amounts of "Like" boxes, Twitter buttons, animates, jquery popups, and the likes. It greatly reduces the time required for reading something, you see?
Besides, I like the current design. :-)