I agree. I also think that a "boring" look is easily resolved by judicious use of color and separating elements.
I really think that the reason many people use the left user information column rather than the top option, is that people are selecting from the lesser of two unpalatable options (no it's not as harsh as that, but it's the best description I can come up with without breaking out the thesaurus :), and you might find that a great many would select the "lean look" over the current options.
Load times would certainly improve for the user, since there would be no unnecessary information downloading (if I want to see what someone looks like, I can certainly go to their profile and check them out). With a new "lean look" option, webmasters would also have the space to do more around the board, like including left side menus.
I hope Scream will consider the idea.
Derek
