Haven't read the thread, but here's my take.
I love the idea to change the main page, I was actually going to post a suggestion thread about the necessity to do so. And frankly, the main page is not so far away from what I had in mind, but there's a few issues with it:
1. Overall impression - looks too much like a blog, too little like an anime website.
2. I'm not sure how big yall's screens are, but on my fairly small 1360x768 monitor the main page takes up maybe half the screen in width, too much space wasted. I would suggest re-designing somehow to make more efficient use of space.
3. I've talked to a few of my friends who lurk the site, and we all agree that the first thing one needs to see on an anime site is anime. As is right now, half the screen is taken up by the ad banner and Fansub banner, the rest by the announcement. You need to scroll down 1-1.5 screens to get to the anime. The new episodes should definitely be on top. Announcements/forum links could either go below, or elsewhere.
4. One way to solve problems #2 and #3 is to move ads to the sides of the screen. Not the perfect solution but it works (see Animetake's from page).
5. Stylistically there's a bit of mismatch b/w main, anime and forum pages.
6. Misc layout musings:
-IMO "browse genre" bar isn't the most important thing in the world to be on the very top of the page. Either move it to the sites, or have it be on top of the "anime" page but not main page.
- Announcement should take up less space. Considering that most of the time it is simply a recommended show or a random Youtube video, it's not that important - not something a visitor should see as soon as they arrive.
- I like the color-coded links for anime/forum/blog. Love the idea. I kind of dislike the fact that the forum links are no longer divided by forum. I also don't think it's necessary to have latest episodes both as text links and as screenshot links. Can be reworked a bit, though don't have a specific idea atm.
- The most important top bar (the one with links for everything and account controls) gets lost between the ad and the site banner. It needs to be made much bigger, and/or moved below the site banner.
Ideally I'd like to see layout like this:
-Fansub.TV Banner
-Main links/User CP enlarged (taking the space of "genres")
-Anime episodes (get rid of the one giant screenshot and just have a few smaller ones as before) - this would take the space of the "announcement" panel"
This would leave a few inches of space on the one screen where you could put forum links, and/or a smaller announcement bar. Alternatively, have episode icons taper off to one side so you can scroll down to see more, while lining up something else on the other side (e.g. ads, forum links etc).
Random suggestion: IMO we should use a representative screenshot/picture (or a few) for the series icons instead of random screens. While it works sometimes, anywhere 40-60% of the time the random screenshot shows an empty wall, sky shot etc. something that doesn't draw your attention or allow you to recognize what you're looking for.
BOTTOM LINE: Please do continue working on it. I love the new design and its slick look, and the change has been long overdue anyway. But, I hope some of these suggestion can be helpful to improving the site.
-Aus