I like the simplicity of the header although the one you just proposed looks very simple and clean as well. I very slightly customized mine, just threw in my own logo and a banner.
http://rebelrockrunners.org/forum/
BTW, I was having a ton of trouble with latency on my forum and spent a lot of time with my host trying to clean it up. Turns out, it was my old template. Once bp-brown was installed, the forum is smoking fast. Great skin.