In reply to Marko S..

I dropped an email to themes@wordpress.org and received the following reply:

"Thanks for the feedback about the new Theme Directory. I'm actually a bit surprised
that the new design might be negatively affecting traffic to the commercial list.
The link is now in the middle of the page near the top versus being buried in a
sidebar. Based on chatter I've come across, there have been people thinking the
commercial list was added in the new design since they hadn't seen it before.

There could be other reasons for changed user behavior as well, asides from the
location of the commercial link.

* Size and prominence of the screenshots might favor or hurt certain sites
* The increased size of the theme shop cards in the listing might lead to less
scrolling by users, and thus less clickthroughs when randomly listed near the bottom
* The haikus being hidden by default: it's possible that previously seeing a haiku
lead to more clickthroughs for some shops

That said, the Theme Directory isn't finalized and the placement of the commercial
link might change. Our goal wouldn't be to maximize traffic to the sites listed on
the commercial page so much as making the site as functional and useful as possible.
We'll take a look at our stats once the dust settles and see how the changes have
affected things. Feel free to write in again if you notice a change in incoming
traffic."