Sorry for going off topic but, I hadn't seen the nextweb new design before. I found it quite disorientating, there is so much orange "stuff". I just didn't know where to look.
I wasn't bothered by the colors so much as the layout. Almost every news source I read has the article all the way to the left, with navigation at the top and secondary content on the right. Having the navigation on the left and the content on the right was disorienting (and I've felt the same with Google's newer blog layouts). I can understand doing this on a tablet, but on a desktop it feels... overly simplified.
Worse for me on my (1024 x 600) netbook: the actual content wasn't even completely visible until I shrunk the font size several notches.
I agree, it feels like a complete downgrade to me. It feels like they're trying to be Gawker.
I felt the same. I was thrown off with the side bar on the left rather than right though.