Wow...from your friend's links, you look to have a pretty good base of friends in the free site market! I can see why they are all anxious to trade traffic with you.
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Seriously though...I'd work on making the site feel a little more unified, content AND design wise. Plain is good for heavilly trafficked and older sites because the viewer base is accustomed to it and the transfer is less....But in the case of a new TGP...make it look like your own personal creation that nobody else has done before you!