Great feedback so far everybody. My feelings thus far:
The placement would do well as an option. There seems to be valid reasons for left, right, and/or center. Unfortunately though that will require more effort than is probably worth. It seems opinion is pretty split so unless we get a wave of people expressing complaints for left-aligned we'll probably keep it as is.
This particular placement is probably short-term anyway though. What Undeath describes is our long term goal. If you look at the code around the time text, you will see a div called "header-bar". More stuff is intended to go here in the long run, like new message count, en-route fleet count, etc. Torqez had some great ideas regarding this.
Lee's idea is an interesting one, but is dependent on a reworking of the current sidebars. This is a tough decision because putting informational "view-only" data on the left nav conflicts with its designed purpose: actionable navigation. This is why it is currently at the top; if we had all the possible info on the left side it could get pretty messy. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try though, but rather that we need to balance functionality with design consistency with these things.
Who knew such a small thing could require so much thought? =P
Arby: Agreed, I will be changing that today.
Thanks for the feedback all, and please provide as much as you'd like. It's very helpful to know how players feel about even small things like this one.
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