Moving the shoutbox to the forum index won't make me use the forum index, it just means I have to click a link to see the shoutbox, then go back and scroll down to see the recent posts box. I know you may want the forum index to be used more, but the fact is that the recent posts box is just so much easier than going to the forum index, clicking through all the subforums, replying, then navigating back out etc.

I do agree with Oric somewhat, though I dislike the negative style he chose to write it in. The about us box (i'm being blunt here), quite frankly looks bad unless you have the website small enough that there are no gaps either side. It is also pretty useless, you're taking up half the frontpage with a box that is only useful to new users visiting the site, and is just an annoyance to the current members of the community, which, let's face it, should be your primary focus (i.e. improving the usability of the site for US, not trying to entice new members, though we need to do that too). I think the about us box does what it does well, it is just badly placed, and anybody wanting to find out about us can just navigate to the about us page.

Thirdly, the news ticker. I know Chalex you went some steps to improve the news ticker, and it is much better this way, but (and I speak with my opinion here, I don't know how much other people use it), something that has nothing to do with ATK shouldn't be a dominating feature on our homepage. Move it to the side and ill be happy (though I do think that we have too much crap on the side as it is).

Fourthly, the colour scheme, I won't say much about this, but I do think the previous scheme was more attractive.

But seriously guys, I really like the effort and thought that you're putting into changing the site for the better, any critisizms I give are purely positive and to try and help you make the site even better by giving you my opinions .