Alright, I've decided to go through and use Photoshop to determine the different color codes that the banner and posts use with the new layout.
To me, the biggest issue is the amount of different blue colors that the layout has. As you will see in the following picture, 7 different color codes can be found just by looking at one post. That doesn't count anything that will be colored blue on the front page or anything in the footer.
http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/1343/egoweblayout.png
Some of the codes in the picture are based off of where I picked the color from, meaning that in reality, there are different codes for different spots in the area where I grabbed the code from. A lot of the blue is in gradients, so not every spot will generate the same code. However, based off of that, you can see that 7 of the spots I chose right off the bat shows that they are all very different blues, giving off a really
odd feeling when looking at it.
This is my perspective, but I also believe a lot of others have the same, but may not have been able to pinpoint
why they don't like the layout. My suggestion would be to try sticking to a select scheme where the blue isn't constantly being altered. And like others have already suggested, maybe a bit more professional rather than cartoony font would be better.