I think if you're going to be making adjustments, what if in the top left hand corner of the screen under where it says "logged in as <username>" it told you how many unread PMs you have? Otherwise i have to keep clicking account options which can get annoying as it doesn't open in a new window.
And on that topic, i know the control panel thing was changed from a popup so more things can fit in there and its ok for people with pop-up blockers, but what if it opened it in a new window? That way you can open it without distracting what you're already doing.