I cannot really help this inescapable feeling that the new design is somewhat obnoxious. It's just... there's something about the design that I just cannot get past. This will only serve to further decrease my already declining viewership.
When I see these toolbars, I just want to reach out through the intertubes to find the developer and cut off his damned fingers to prevent him ever writing any more code...
Yes, it's just you. :)
But the idea that a menu bar moves up/down with the page content is a holdover from print media. A tasteful and useful menu bar that sticks to the top of the frame is a very useful piece of UI; why is the world should I have to scroll to the `top of the page to find the menu? GMail does it nicely. I think the Techcrunch bar is actually pretty useful (even if I think the rest of the design is straight 1996).
That said, I agree with others, the nav bar is cool as well as hiding / restyling the share widgets. Still too much green and loud type.