> why are the left and top menus (standards, participate, ...) the same?
Looks like the top menu is static, but the left menu changes as you navigate. Compare the two on this page: http://www.w3.org/Consortium/membership-benefits
Kinda falls apart on pages like this: http://www.w3.org/Consortium/fee-history
There's a lot of needless elements though. Go here: http://www.w3.org/Consortium/membership.html, then click on the drop-down under 'Fees'. The 'current fees' link takes you to the same page that the 'Fees' link goes to. And the 'fee history' link goes to a page that is also linked to from the page the 'Fees'/'current fees' links go to.
Same with the drop-down under "Join W3C" The "Join W3C" link and the "how to join" link both point to the same URL: "http://www.w3.org/Consortium/join
edit: and why have the "pointer" point to yet another instance of the word "standards" rather than the one in the top menu? i know it's way better than it was, but it seems odd to be so much better and yet still have odd things like that...