This discussion comes up every few months. Not sure why you've never noticed it before, SG.
It doesn't take a genius to tell the site's design is old-fashioned, but of course, it's not easy to determine whether putting in tens of thousands of dollars will bring in more than that in new revenue. In terms of how to go about an overhaul, it will definitely be difficult to properly display a blog that has 2 main purposes - deals and travel - not that that's a reason to throw away the idea of a redesign. While I agree that deals don't need a picture of diapers, I think the pictures that the major travel bloggers include of their hotels/planes adds a huge aspect to the CC and travel posts - shows you what to aspire to. And regarding Dan's point above, I don't think the "chap" of the new site should be a better connection between DDMS and DDF. I know this has been debated before, but is DDF really such a good source of income? Sure, many deals have HTs to DDF, but how many DDMS readers really care for the forums? They don't want to get lost in the world of DDF; they just want the simple stuff handed to them on a silver platter. Not sure why more than just a link to DDF is necessary.