Replying to Please take a step back and look at the site these days

I completely understand that you needed to increase the size of your banners so as to be compliant with the rest of the world.

But could you guys please take a look at some other websites, then NS, and give it a facelift?

The top of the page is ridiculously ugly. The enlarged widgets for the search bar look terrible - especially the big font. And the banner ad superimposed on a photo, with no border or anything, not good. The search button doesn't even click - it's just an image, with an inner bevel/plasticy look straight out of 1998.

I've also made this post a long time ago, but the dropdown menus are just not useful. I absolutely hate having 2 go through 3 pages to get to ski gabber - Frontpage/login, Interact|Forums, then ski gabber. The whole point of javascript menus is to allow you to get straight where you want, without going to intermediate pages.

Going back to the top of the page - the "Site Clothing | Gear Swap | Stickers" link, in gray, on a black and white image - tough to read. And on the right side bar, there's almost 0 point in having content below the google text based ads - you'll barely scroll down to it on most pages.

Sorry for the negativity - I love this site, I just think it's time for a facelift.