pictish,
The banner is to make sure we catch ANY problems - and to be right up front with everyone that it's not perfect, and there may be issues, but we're working on it as best we can.
Perfect we ain't but we're trying.
As for the look - none of the work has gone into the look and feel yet - it's all gone towards a solid infrastructure and - without being nasty - if you really read the post and had any understanding of what it costs to run a big site, you'd know that.
Look and feel is next on the to do list, but it's going to take a while. We're hoping / planning for by first thing in the new Year, if not sooner. In the meantime, while that process is going on, (we're not designers, in fact you're looking at my design and I get what you think of it!

) we're also working on much improved blogs, a proper shopping cart, mapping systems, and several other things. Oh yeah, and we're also working on just keeping the website running and all the rest that is HU, (a very full time 8+ hours a day every day,) such as meetings all over the world, 8 weeks on the road this year, and today we unpacked some more stuff from our move to Canada from the UK in January.
And it's now bedtime, so with that, I hope that gives you the idea that we're working on it all, and we do understand what you're saying!