Originally Posted by warlock5

I think your hitting the nail on the head as far as branding with the redesign! My only complaint would be that the stencil font on the left navigation menu seems a little too squished.

Thats a bold approach to cut down on the ads, especially on the front page. Most people do the opposite, start the site with few or no ads and then once the traffic builds up they fill the page until you can't see anything else (about.com, stile <choke>.) Minimizing the ads definately keeps surfers happy..