Damn right!
Here's the results.
From what I can can analyse, there have been good changes and bad changes.
Bad Changes:
Many pages moved from the side-bar to the top bar have had dramatic drops in content views. In particular, the forums, the 83 portal home page and *gasps* the archives. Also, pages linked from the 83 portal home page have had a slight impact too.
Good Changes:
All of the pages in the side-bar have had dramatic rises in content views. Notably, the Starter Kit and the References. So has the Commands, but as previously pointed out, we have positioned viewers to access the commands from the side bar (so this shouldn't take a deep consideration when comparing).
Conclusion:
I think that from the statistics, the impact of page views makes it very clear that the side-bar receives the most attention — significantly higher than that of the top-bar. This proves that the top-bar is near invisible to most users, and that they are much more likely to access content from the sidebar rather than the top-bar.
Now, to me it makes sense that we should put the content in the side-bar that we want our users to view the most; likewise, we should put content in the top-bar that we want our users to view the least, but content that is regularly accessed and very useful to our members. Keep in mind, that the side-bar should be kept to a minimal to avoid unattractive clutter.
I don't know about you guys, but I tend to feel that the archives, and perhaps the home page of the respective portal, should be moved to the side-bar.
I am also very interested to know if our older members have become used to the change in layout? Whether they still dislike it?
Cheers