I agree that the current look is "prettier" overall, but to be honest, I'm getting rather tired of various skins that go for "ooh shiny" over usable. Some of us -- such as myself -- have rather poor eyesight (or color-blindness, not me though on this one), and skins where everything is differentiated by subtle differences in shade are freakin' annoying. (Just to clarify, I'm not blaming this on fewyn, it's more of a "Why are these the defaults on so many new installs" issue.)
The old skin wasn't perfect -- there were a few post status differences that I had a hard time parsing -- but on this one I can barely read the main text inside of a post, never mind trying to tell what posts are new etc.
But yeah, I understand "function" is the first priority. I'd just really like to cast my vote in favor of "plz make readable kthx."