Suggesting a visual improvement

First I'd like to say that this is a great site and a great source of help with PHP.

However, I must say that in my opinion the visual appearance of the site is severely outdated and drab. I think that this actually takes from the experience of the site.
It seems to me that a site that's up-to-date with the latest server-side language should have an impressive and up-to-date website.

For example, this site: http://www.phpfreaks.com/ has a simple, clean and visually pleasing look. Although this does not of course guarantee the quality of content it does have more positive connations of technology and information.

I have to admit that I don't like staying, browsing on this forum mostly for the simple reason that it doesn't look appealing and it feels like the other users are very distant because of the grey, business-like color scheme of the site.

Another thing is the graphics such as the smilies which are dark and outdated. The "Post Reply" button has sharp edges, has a weird bump effect and doesn't really go with anything on the site. IMO.

That's my opinion, and hopefully will be taken as constructive criticism to improve the site.

-SW

This is a resource site for PHP and SQL developers. Not a resource site for web designers. I'm a programmer. The look you see is the best I can do...

Personally I don't like the new look Eric put on PHP Freaks. I can barely read anything on it. All the fonts are way too small.

"Content is the king" ~Unknown

Back to in about a year ago, I've post a thread suggesting Matt the same thing. Up to now his answer is still the same :p

I like to see an elegan website, dynamics, good colors combination and many more advanced XHTML (or flash) stuff. What are they use for? It's only for pleasing my bare eyes. Adding more knowledge to my foolish brain? I don't know.