I think the new menu is a lot better than the original one.
I'm not an artist, if someone could make a few sets of alternative images I'd be really chuffed. And if the code could be changed to eliminate the image overlap between the 'start' button and the first menu that would be great too.

A few things that I'd like to see are:
1) No limit to length of menu text (other by screen width)
2) Marker of some sort for parent entries
3) All child menus starting at a certain level related to parent menu entry
4) Bring an app to the fore by clicking it's process tab. (Think this was being worked on)