I think the redesign is absolutely terrible, and I'm not talking about visuals. The emphasis of the UI is on advertising / sponsorships, and not on content; for a content-focused company, this doesn't work. I can't help but think of a tirade that David Cross goes on about Arrested Development where he basically ridicules the network for shortening the length of the show, minutes at a time, in order to increase ad revenue at the expense of the show and its viewers. Techcrunch appears to be doing the same thing, albeit in a different medium.