User blog comment:BertH/Layout and navigation updates coming October 3/@comment-8072-20120921002424/@comment-140142-20120924220728

1. Nope. Splitting the Global Header and the Page apart is an idea that the Design team has been kicking around for a long time. Their belief is that making a visible split makes it easier to scan the page and see logical sections for Wikia (global header), ads (middle), and wiki (the page area). If you compare the before and after, you'll probably notice that the wiki's logo is easier to spot in the upper left corner of the page. The slight change in width came from the grid layout that we've used on the Wikia homepage and hub pages. The 330 pixel wide right rail is derived from balancing the column width and isn't because we've got a bunch of 330 pixel wide ads that we want to shove into the page. :)

2. With Oasis, we created the Theme Designer which is a huge improvement on the CSS hacking that took place in Monobook, Quartz, and Monaco. So I hear ya, I've been here 5 years, but changes happen. There's work involved for all of us, but please know that we don't make changes just to make inconvenience. We really believe that this is a better design and we're sorry to have to ask anyone to make adjustments.

3. I'm not the best guy to answer this question because I think you're more interested in a product/marketing answer. Speaking as an engineer, fewer options means fewer scenarios to test against.