Though I am still suspicious that my theme or upgrade was to blame for my host’s server load issues, I have caved and made some MORE changes. I dumped the old new skin (which I didn’t love anyways), and went back to the old color scheme, and used a slimmer and sleeker model, complete with some of the WP 2.0 widgets.
If you are reading on a feed reader, pop over and let me know what ya think. And Hostgator…if the server load issues come back, PLEASE contact me before pulling things down so I can investigate.
Jagshemesh.