I too will weigh in on the new format. I taught Computer Science for many years - programming as well as some web page design and I always stressed knowing your audience. While I am sure the layout will take awhile to get use to (I am not keen on it), we will all get used to it and I am sure we will all like it once we get the hang of it.
However, the actual font, font size and contrast on the screen is awful. This is a perfect example (imho) of web designers having no understanding of their audience. I will guess the average age on this board is on the older side which means the eyesight will be poorer due to a variety of health issues. Yes "control" "+" will zoom the page but even at that the font can be still difficult to read - especially in the quick reply blocks which has a different font that the posts. The "weight" of the font almost make it appear gray not black on an off white background on my screen and the spacing between the letters is way too close for ease of reading. The teal colors while not unsightly are way too light and the resulting contrast with the background is extremely low.
Hopefully they will listen to our concerns. I have never before had issues reading this site until tonight! Zooming to 120% the font in the posts are readable but very low in contrast while I had to zoom 133% in the reply box to even see what I was typing.