Heh. Turned out quite a bit different.
I like the wood background, although now you see quite a big gap between the content boxes. I would make the left one wider so there isn't as big a gap.
Also, I would work on the banner text, as its sort of small, and sort of goes un-noticed. The rest of the text also looks kind of blurred. Since it is small, and you have smoothing on.. it tends to happen. Try setting the sub-navigation to "Verdana" or "Tahoma" with no smoothing.
Thats how it would look on the web anyway.
Nice template and Great improvements.