I'm sure once all the older pages are re-vamped/re-generated they will then be able to remove all the old stylesheet stuff. At the moment they are supporting the old and new layouts...
I like that they have moved to a subtle teal instead of typical navy blue, there are still some issues with spacing between items on the news front page, I'd seperate the elements more, to make it feel neater and more organized.
Also its time to ditch verdana for headers, and move to arial
I think it would look a lot better if they went the way of channel4.com, and allowed the larger sections to alter the header with their own design and logo.
I'm not sure the cross hatching is actually, the shape of it makes me think its a sphere/globe, perhaps those curved elements loop in twists like a cat's cradle?