Ok here's the plan.
Now you mention it, we think you've all got a point about the wasted space on the left hand side of the screen (the beige bar)
so we will go back to our lovely designer (plse God she's not been reading this morning) and ask her to have ago at moving that navigation across the top of the page, so it's more like things were before and so there's more width for talk.
We will also continue to play with fonts, colours, spacing and hues until we silence (or at the very least quieten) the hue and cry...
Many thanks, as ever, for your input.
MN Towers