I think that the new design is a good fit with the rest of the WordPress family, while still being original enough to stand on its own.

Seems like having a sharp looking website should help generate more interest in bbPress and give the impression that the project is maturing a bit.

But now that bbpress.org and the dashboard have been freshened up, Kakumei really stands out like a sore thumb ;)

I think the Gravatars, and other poster info looks sharp, but I can see how a series of one line posts with such large Gravatars could take up quite a bit more room than need be.