I don't want to hijack the design discussion...
... but I would like to open up discussion of content. I'd like to see the bitcoin.org home page to be less about bitcoin-the-software and more about bitcoin-the-currency.
You don't have to download and run any software to run bitcoin, and I think most non-technies are better off using an online wallet service rather than running bitcoin.exe. So I'd like to see the DOWNLOAD/HOWTO sections moved to a separate page, and have the home page have links to there and to a Wiki page that lists the online wallet services (and starts with a little discussion of the tradeoffs of using an online wallet provider instead of running bitcoin yourself).
I'd be perfectly happy if the design and content was improved (as already discussed) and then the content was changed later, if there's general agreement that de-emphasizing the download is a good idea.