Today the OTN Forums where updated. The site is still in read-only mode as they are fixing some issues.
This is how the new APEX Forum looks like:
I need to get used to this new look and feel, but it looks more up-to-date design wise.
You can expand a thread straight from this page by clicking on the arrow-down icon which is nice.
At first sight it might actually organise the threads nicer; for example when people start to use the likes, the content page shows a nice overview and it should give an idea what is playing in the community.
For me the search and performance are one of the most important features of a forum, after a couple of days and when the upgrade is finalised, we know more...