Regarding the top bar, I think it is an excellent idea to have a consistent navigation structure that integrates the content pages and the forum (I believe a certain someone, probably among many others, might have suggested that in the past, actually ).

However, I would suggest to perhaps have a look into how the different elements could be integrated a bit differently from a design perspective - right now, the top banner, the side banner, the navigation bar and the forum elements look disintegrated on a standard 1024 x 768 screen. This could probably be adjusted with a relatively small effort in terms of redesign. Just my 0.000002 cents . Also, I am not sure if the navigation bar is already 100 % optimized in terms of being "light" (kb) - the different images and elements combined do add up to a few kb.