The changes are NOT set in stone, we (as in Rouge, cough, cough) accidentally wrote over the code of the old style in stead of adding a new one we could pay with. Unfortunately with the way computers work you can't just go...... actually i didn't mean that, change it back.
We will be tweaking as we go before ultimately deciding and may even install a number of styles and allow users to choose which one they use.
As for pictures in the header, this is in progress. It requires a fair bit of tinkering/coding as well as images and logo redesign.
We have made a large number of changes behind the scene's already that you won't have noticed, its only when we add extra features or things don't go 100% the way we expect that things get noticed.
Most importantly we have closed potential security holes, updated scripts and added some new ones.