Homepage Concept

interesting design.... one idea that I saw mentioned was making it user selectable. which would solve the mobile issues.

looks cool

How about having an overlay always over the image, except just the bottom 35px.
You can use the same size avatar image as the OP forum post and have the time, comments, and entries in a line.
example

This would keep the same vertical space used not require hovering to work

I like it, maybe have an option for size? It's nice having them big, but I prefer to see more on the page :)

Good job!

I would like to be able to scale the size of the grid/number of blocks(rows and columns) shown. But I like it.

Too little info at a glance.

The new design is fun and stylish (its really attractive for new users) but it lacks the functionality that frequent users want.

Also in terms of functionality, it would be really nice to have some kind of account notification that would alert you (on the account bar up top) whenever someone replied to a post in the forum, or whenever you won something. I know winning isn't a common thing, but I always check my "won" tab whenever I log in just in case I won something (mostly so I don't enter into another contest for the same thing).