sestoppelman,
First of all thank you for being willing to share your thoughts about what was/could be better about the site and I would hope that no one would jump on you for that. I have received so much positive feedback, which is nice, but some honest thoughts about what is not as good is invaluable to me and I appreciate it. I always strive to make this site the best that it could be, so your input is so important.
I realize that it is not always easy when things change and truthfully I would not have done this if it was not necessary. I will share with you that I have not yet completed the homepage, but needed to work on that separately since I wanted to get the site back up and running ASAP. It is my intention that the new homepage will feature in the main body right at the top the latest threads/conversations, similar to the old right side bar with new threads and posts column. It will still be a couple of weeks before the homepage will be ready to roll out. I had very little time to prepare and do the transition so reinventing the homepage was put aside until after the transition and fixing any of the bugs, broken links, etc.
The new homepage will feature cascading dynamic elements in boxed cells (a fixed one at the top with current conversation) that are updating constantly to feature the latest content, trending topics, pictures and the historically most popular topics that have been staples of the site to appeal to all of you who come on a regular basis as well as those who just stop by from time to time and others who are just discovering the site for the first time.
At this stage I am still trying to work out how I am going to create the vision that I have for the homepage and bring it into reality, but I will certainly take your comments into consideration as I want to make the homepage as dynamic, easy to use and engaging as possible.
