Hello, hello! I was curious what you all as vB enthusiasts and forum junkies in general thought of the User Interface of the forum controls. Does vB have it perfect? Is there room for customization? Does it throw you off or annoy you when a site changes where functions are located?

How radical can a layout change before it is too much? For instance, I will NOT post at a forum where the user info is vertical but on the RIGHT hand side. I find that distracting and annoying. Do you have any pet peeves regarding forum design?

Lastly, how important is a sleek design? With vB3, we have see many things get grouped together as dropdown menus. Has this aided you and/or your users in anyway? Or is it just cool to have the dropdowns? Is there more room for compacting information?
Or do you subscribe to the 1000 links along the top of the screen?

Me personally, I cannot fathom the multiple rows of links some people have thrown into their header. But hey, it's an opinion.
What's yours?

I hate bumping my own thread, but I am really curious what people's thoughts are since I am doing a pretty heavy design.

Sorry. I was meaning to writing something on this when I first read it, but with New Years party preparations and client work it slipped my mind. :(

But I will put some thought into this before the end of the year. :p