I am having home page loading issues related to that animated top graphic also. My browser freezes until EVERYTHING gets loaded and the loading takes forever. So much so that I now have to bypass the homepage and go directly to the forums.
But since reading the homepage was my primary reason for visiting, I may have to abandon the site until this issue is fixed. A single stationaty image works fine (like before) but these animated things just bog everything down.
Not everybody is on lightning fast DSL, and not everybody lives in N. America. I live on the opposite side of the world and, while I do have DSL, it is rarely lightning fast.
The issue exists on every browser I have tried, but my primary browser is Opera 12.16 and Windows XP SP(whatever the latest is).