Reaction to the redesign was, ahem, not universally favourable. That's OK though, it's been a good learning experience. Rather than throw my hands up in disgust, I've put through a number of tweaks to the template to address some of the criticisms. These seem to be sending me back towards the place I first started, but that's OK too.
Let's see how it goes. I can always pull the plug and go back to the old template.