Simply put, and forgive the incoming "caps train"...
THIS IS AWESOME!
I am very, VERY impressed with this. Good job. Hey, it might need a little bit of polish, but it is a great start and I am very impressed with the new profile, wiki, and chat systems.
That said, I agree with most of the people here about the forums part, but NOT because I don't like the way it is now or the way it is organized. I am having a hard time reading the page. All that takes is a little polish which I firmly believe will come in due time. Other than that small difficulty I love this new arrangement 100% more than the last setup.
Well done. I look forward to more avatars and any updates you bring.
Nice thinking guys. A great start in improving the community atmosphere. Awesome.
I agree. Heck, they've already said they're still improving upon this, so I don't see why people can't just wait a bit for further development. I really don't think they'll take any steps back from this, so things should only get better from here on out.
I agree with both of you. I've spent a lot of time since last night exploring the forum more than I have in quite a while and I'm looking forward to what will be available a week from now. 
now that i completely revamped it via stylish, i'll like it for like 2 weeks... but really - there is no way they should have gone live with this as-is.
i set the zoom factor of this page to about 200%, now it's a bit more readable. really, there should be a "large" skin or whatever... i believe kyros has exactly the same problem.
yes, overall, I agree and like, but the layout needs some fixing. Large blocks of text (even when concepts are separated by commas) may be space efficient and great for reading text books, but when trying to parse information and organize it, leads to confusion and frustration, it doesn't lend itself to organizing information.
use white space
not only is it easier on the eye and the mind
it is poetic