Interesting proposals, but like Andy Rutledge's NYT re-design (http://andyrutledge.com/news-redux.php) limited by the practicalities of implementing them. I don't think the Wikimedia foundation has the resources to do any kind of major re-design, at least not quickly.
I agree. There are so many of these "awesome redesigns" around that totally miss the point. First of all, design is not chrome. It never has been and never will be. Design is the combination of form and content, but all of these redesigns are 100% form. Content is always sacrificed in these attempts.
If a person like Andy Ruthledge had worked at the NYTimes, he would know that a number of this country's best designers are working on that site, and it's not just a matter of sitting down in Photoshop to do a redesign. You should never lose readers for the sake of new colors. Not to mention how the nytimes.com is an enormous site with layers and layers of interplaying systems. Making stuff like this mostly looks like a young designer saying "this is what you should do", but feels like a young designer saying "I don't have a clue about how things work".
