Need advice...

[Buddha]

nice work.
just a few suggestions (and these are only opinions).
- splash pages for the most part are useless. they waste surfers time. if the same options are provided on the actual index page, why force the user to make one more click just to get to where they want to be... just so they can see a guy with a gun... know what i mean. it's a nice picture but it's fairly large and dial-up visitors will have to wait a while for it to load.
- your index and forum styles don't match. they're not even the same shades of blue. plus, the index is blue with white highlights/borders, and the forum is blue with black highlights/borders.
- your index rollovers are too close to the background color. this is also the case with your category headers in the forum, where they completely disappear. most people really hate that type of rollover.
- you should consider using the same header (if not at least the same font) for your index and forum.
- a little more obvious seperation between news items on the index would be nice. kinda all blends together now.
- wouldn't use the stock buttons. you have great headers on the index. use that same style for your buttons dude.
- the text on your page css is too close to the background color (copyright, forum icons text)
- index font size is too small... that's 10 right? alright for the navigation options, but hard to read in the news items.
- can't comment on the postbit, as the forums are locked (need to register).

i think the index is great. nice clean look. white on blue works. the nav buttons look slick. great font choices with the exception of size.