I'll rub a little aloe in that wound. I actually like the redesign. The illustrations are great, and overall it's a big improvement over the original. Worth the price? Perhaps not, but at least you have a better website now, and more experience dealing with agencies.
Thanks for the aloe! Yeah, that's how I feel as well.
I was expecting people to not like the new design but it's been surprising to hear how many people prefer the old design and logo. I think the new one is way better, and it's not even close. Not perfect, but certainly an improvement.
But I would definitely hire a freelancer to do some visual clean up time to time.
As site content is updated, I can already see evidence of site feel reverting back to 'mom and pop', 'maintained by webmaster' look in some sections / pages.
