I'm all for far faster.

I wonder if how the 'Top skinners' is calculated will change, some, that are listed as such, tend to release one skin after another that perhaps wouldn't be defined as a top skin by some, yet download counts would indicate that it is.

Perhaps a 'Most downloads' section would be more appropriate and Top Skinner status could be derived from the new rating system somehow.

Looks good and sounds great!

Yup, looks better and faster loading will always be welcome.

As for the tab thing...I was hoping it would look more like MyColors/Impulse.

Glad Winky's still there!

So far so good!

I like the faster loading , but I'm a Taurus dear, I love the way it looks now, and it takes ages for me to adjust to change, but that's life.. I find it easier to navigate the way it is, dropdowns can be confusing as most of the time you don't know they are there, and you end up clicking all over the place.. ahh.. I just woke up, don't mind me

It's sound good and as vStyle said faster would be better.

I'm not that at all up on what web 2.0 is supposed to do for the user, let alone the developer and programmer.   One place I read left me feeling that with web 2.0 we lose alot of the 'eye candy'.  Is that true?

Rich Internet applications (RIAs) are web applications that have some of the characteristics of desktop applications, typically delivered by way of proprietary web browser plug-ins or independently via sandboxes or virtual machines[1]. Examples of RIA frameworks include Adobe Flash, Java/JavaFX and Microsoft Silverlight.

The term was introduced in the 1990's by vendors like Macromedia who were addressing limitations at the time in the "richness of the application interfaces, media and content, and the overall sophistication of the solutions" by introducing proprietary extensions.

As web standards (such as Ajax and HTML 5) have developed and web browsers' compliance has improved there is less need for such extensions. HTML 5 delivers a full-fledged application platform; "a level playing field where video, sound, images, animations, and full interactivity with your computer are all standardized".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Internet_application

Think YouTube or iGoogle.  YOu don't click and wait . . you can actually interact with stuff.

Thanks ZubaZ, I'm sure I wasn't the only one with those questions.

All depends on how minimal a site goes in it's design. Naturally images that aren't made up with lots of color or depth will load faster... so the less eye candy used... the faster the site.

I got a look at the larger site mockups (unobscured, full of goodness) before I left the office tonight.  They look damn nice   

Brad, that sounds über-cool! Can't wait to see it in action!

A lill' question though... Will the site eventually be 'skinnable', as it were in the good old days?

Always good to be able to change the look, if one gets bored with the same look day after day.

I wish this too.. while I love WC, the white kills my light sensitive peepers. Currently I am in the Christmas Card list from Motrin.

A few switchable themes would be cool.

Will WC keep some of it's originality?

I know dear, but I don't want to walk in and see a place that is totally unrecognizable is all

Where have I heard that before?

Hmmmm....Snowy might actually have something there....I wonder if there actually might be a way for each of us to customize the site...sort of like the way one can arrange the order of appearance, color, etc. of sites like Google News, Yahoo (My Yahoo), The old Netscape site....

Anybody but me think that might be a worthwhile idea?

As long as it doesn't have the lightbox crap for the skin previews like on the GUIC site. You had to wait for the ENTIRE page to load (which we all know isn't very fast) before you can view the preview. If you immediately wanted to just see the preview (duh) and clicked on it before the rest finished loading, it would open a pop-up asking what application you wanted to view the image with. After cancelling that, you'd have to refresh the page, let it all load, and THEN click to see the full preview. Annoying and inefficient.

Other than that, sounds good.

Lightbox is good as long as teh underlying page loads fast enough.

WC used to have the function for user's to choose a default theme to see. It disapeared a long time ago, but I wolud like to see it return if possible. I'd prefer a Darker look, like the My Colors site. Black & teal with Grey text..