I also think a little more colour might ‘lift it’ even more. How about the tags in the sidebar being pink or even orange!
Keep up the great work!

Looking at them now, the thing I disliked the most about the old design was the picture of the bricks and the bench - just seemed jarring to me somehow. The color scheme (blue, orange, red) made it difficult to figure out at a glance what was most important (hope that makes sense). Although, now that I think of it, maybe the orange was part of the orangejack connection. Also, I think the font you used before (or perhaps the line spacing/font color, etc.) made the content less readable.

I like this design because it seems cleaner and more elegant. Also like the social bookmarking links in the right-hand column of the permalink pages. Plus, trackbacks!

One thing I don’t particularly like about this new design is the location of recent entries and About at the bottom of the home page. I’m more accustomed to seeing those in the sidebar and they sort of seem like an afterthought when they are at the bottom. Not sure you want those items (especially the About portion) to be an afterthought so maybe think about putting them in the sidebar. Just a thought.

By the way, is the comment system part of the template? Something about it (perhaps the way the text field moves) seems very useful and natural to me.