The problem is almost any kind of change generally brings very polar response. At some point sites have to just trust their instincts and hope that over days and weeks users will get used to it and like it.

I have seen it happen with Digg - every time their new design goes up the hate comments start appearing; or even Facebook - when they launched the newsfeed, it seemed like the end of the world if you went by the chatter on college campuses.