FoodVu - Web page redesign needed

Foodvu is A Web site for consuming professional video shorts and snarky blog posts regarding food. We made an awful choice for our initial designer, so 99designs gets the task of sorting through the wreckage and returning us to decency. We'd ask for excellence, but overshooting is what got us into this mess.

FoodVu

FoodVu needs two basic pages designed: A home page, which shows offour videos and our recent blog posts, and a sub-page where anindividual blog post or video will live. Here's what the site looks like right now (not for the faint of heart).

Ideally, the site should communicate that we have cool videos and snarky blog posts. Right now, it communicates that we have one embedded video player and some pixelated thumbnails. If you somehow stumble onto a subpage (and bravo for you, intrepid explorer), there's almost no cross-promotional elements (like, say, navigation, or related content lists) that would encourage you to keep surfing. It would be nice if folks stayed a while.

- The FoodVu logo stays, everything else style-wise (including colors and fonts) can go
- A featured video must be prominent and ABOVE THE FOLD on the homepage
- Related video thumbnails (at least three) must be prominent on the homepage
- A main blog post must be prominent and ABOVE THE FOLD on the homepage
- Additional blog posts must be prominent on the home page
- A user login-area is required in the header, including name and password fields and a submit button. It can't just be a link
- A visitor poll must be present on the home page
- A Google ad space must be present on the homepage and subpages, conforming to standard Adsense dimensions
- The site must conform to a 1024 x 768 display
- An RSS subscription call-to-action and orange chiclet must be prominent on the homepage
- This site is built on Drupal (yes, really), which means a maximum three-column layout and no animated display elements. Think old-school.
- An SEO-friendly site description box (where we waste a paragraph telling Google what FoodVu is) should be present, not prominent, on both the home and sub-pages
- On subpages, a related content box must be present, and encourage consumption. Make me want to surf more.
- A site search box should be prominent (preferably in the header) on both the home and subpages 
- DON'T WORRY ABOUT CODING. We have cheap offshore labor (yes, we're those kind of jerks) who will turn your PSD file into Drupal Code. Don't sweat it the tech end. 
- Sub pages must include exposed comment threads, and a call-to-action for commenting. Ideally, there would be a complete comment form exposed below the content on the subpages, so people would, you know, comment

- Anything that would require Flash. Drupal dosen't like the taste of Flash. Too fizzy.
- A site that is more snazzy than functional.
- A site that doesn't scream WE HAVE VIDEO! Because, hey, we have video and people should know that
- Anything that would hideously hose SEO. We would actually like to make a little money on this site which would require Google being aware it exists
- Pastels. We have history. Don't go there.