Hi Jon (and everyone else),
I realize, being quite a newbie here, that I don't know much about how things have "always been" or "always looked", but I have some questions/suggestions I think might be worth a look.
First, the Google Ads on the Products, Services, and Learning tabs seem a bit odd to me. What I mean by this is that the Ads themselves are visually larger than your content.
Why have the Ads larger than your content and above the content? Ads should be a great way to earn some income to help diffuse the costs of hosting, however they should never (in my opinion) diminish your content.
Second, on the Home tab, perhaps adding a bit more column padding between the center Content column and the left/right Ad columns would be a bit more appealing. Currently the three columns visually kind of "merge" together.
Finally, I know that asking people to donate money is not the most profitable way to add income, and requiring it might turn people away who only visit for "free information". What about a middle of the road option for now, until a decision is made about moving to a new version and implementing which ever revenue generating option you'd like to take?
My suggestion for this "middle of the road" is to add a PayPal donate box and if people donate, they donate. If they don't, they don't.
I think those who want to, like boblarson (I believe he's the one who mentioned way back in the posts he donates a few bucks here and there), will donate, and would like the option to give back to a forum like this.
I found this forum because my job required me to create an Access DB, and I had to Google some issues I was having and voila. Now, I find myself checking here even when I don't have an immediate question.
I feel like there are those who will stick around, and those who wont, and it wont matter what decision you make, except NO DECISION if you expect everything to stay as it is.
Just my thoughts as someone new here.
Love the site; learning a lot! (Hopefully one day I can help others as I've been helped.)
*Another thing*
I just finished reading through a lot of the posts for newbies such as how to get a response to your question and how to speak to a programmer.
I think the stickies are good, however a lot of the discussion was as if a train derailed! Perhaps locking the posts when they are general advice and having discussion in a different thread?