I have to start by giving some personal background about what is going to follow. I started with computers back in the early to mid eighties. I needed a better way to handle our rapidly increasing payroll load. I started with Lotus 123 (long before MS Excel) and then later switched to Quattro, which I could run with the lotus menu tree, as it allowed me to add conditional formatting to certain cells that would show me negative numbers in red etc.  I set up huge automated and linked spreadsheets that had Macros that branched to several locations because of the 128-character per cell limit. They took me a couple of years to tweak and prefect. I custom build spreadsheets for several local businesses. And then came the time when companies changed hands and Lotus and Quattro where no longer supported. Microsoft took a proprietary stance (that is getting worse daily) and wouldn’t allow anything but Excel to run on Windows beginning with &$%#Vista. So I had to switch to Excel and literally rebuild my spreadsheets. It a lot of took time, but now I have them looking virtually like my original spreadsheets with of course some hidden benefits.

 After all the above, what I’m trying to convey is that I can see no reason that the old format look could not have been kept. If changes had to be made, the technology is certainly available to make whatever upgrades or underlying programing changes necessary, without changing the overall basic look and functionality of the original site. It is my opinion that so much damage to existing and potential future membership has been with this format that if it stays this way, it will probably be irreversible.  

 Just an opinion from an old guy that’s been around the block a few too many times regarding computer programing and the pitfalls of making major changes.

      George.  

 PS,   I wonder if DS really reads what is posted here?