It looks better already. One more thing to consider: on laptop screens it is likely that your content links are below the fold. I understand if you want to keep it big and open-looking, but you might consider tightening up the top to bring content links either into the landing view, or closer to it. I was messing around on my screen, but even with tightening it up quite a bit, I only got the quote in there. Before: After: I have a small font/image bias though. So I probably would go too far in that direction... I do agree that moving the tag cloud was good. BTW, I always thought that was a Sagan quote!
Carl Sagan definitely popularized that quote, but the first time I heard it was in Christopher Hitchens's book "God Is Not Great". I understand what your saying about the content on laptop screens. That does concern me a little bit. I'll see what I can do. I like smaller font/images as well, but I have had some people tell me to enlarge the font as well! So I'm not sure what to do.
I'd peruse blogs that you like, and ones in the neighborhood of your content. I do believe that the proper aesthetic is content-dependent. I get conflicting feedback here all the time. At some point, you just have to go with your gut for starters, and modify conservatively from there.So I'm not sure what to do.