Comment good use of 960px but here are my thoughts (Score 1) 1191
I have my 1920x1200 displays on their sides so the site looks fantastic but the old site was making better use of the space, especially if I'm on my laptop using it's dismal 1600x900 display.
If /. is going to go down this route, why not do something akin to Google Plus where you can switch between the 960px container and a 100% container and maybe have it saved as a user preference or dynamically re-size base on the users screen res (easy task using Javascript, not fool proof though)
Also, what's with the header? Once the user scrolls to the top, why not have it expand even taller and bring some use to it (I love how Tech Crunch make use of their floating header, and also Google Plus)
All in all, it's still WIP afaikt so I'll be interested to see how it pans out.
Now get off my lawn!!!