Problem with display, can you help?

[blitzkrg]

Hello,
I am upgrading from a modified/hacked 3.0.1 to a unmodified 3.5.3
in other words, our current site (3.0.1) has many hacks and mod's. we are going to upgrade to 3.5.3 but not take any of the mods with us.

so how i've done this is to basically start with fresh unmodified files from 3.5.3 and import the database from 3.0.1 and then run the upgrade, thus upgrading all the tables and database stuff to make it current with 3.5.3
everything goes fine, no problems all the user data and post and all that is there.
however 60% of our themes/styles are all messed up
40% of them work just fine.
attached is a screen shot
i've checked every setting i could think of
and i even went back through the database table for table to make sure they where right and i dropped any tables that shouldnt be there.
ie. i had vbchat on the 3.0.1 install but not going to use it on 3.5.3 so i dropped all the tables that said vbchat_whatever
and so on and so fourth

i cant seem to figure out what would make our front page show funny.
when you click on any link or go to any other part of the site it's perfectly fine, only the front page is messed up

any help or suggestions are apprechiated.
thanks

edit: i should mention that all of our styles work fine on a vanilla install.
it's when i bring the data over from 3.0.1 that over half stop working correctly.. i just dont know where else to look
thanks