RelaX

Hell, I've only used CSS-P once, and on a very simple page. But that is not the point.
{IMHO}
The point is that, if you have the time, you should learn about stuff like this. Because that's how you get better, not by reading books or collaborating with someone who already knows everything about it, but by doing it... and screwing up.... and tearing your hair out over why the hell it isn't working. And ripping designs from others that are totally incompatible from yours, but making them work anyway.
Because, like it or not, XHTML and CSS is the future and actually the current standard in web development. And any HTML 4.0, riddled with tables and non W3C compliant site, will quickly be obsolete and will ultimately gain you nothing. Unless it's a quick hackjob, I would never use HTML 4.0 with no CSS, even if I had to start learning XML and XSLT (something which I would actually love, but that's beside the point ). Simply because that will only benefit what you have to make, a good goal, but ultimately YOU will get nothing out of it.
And some day, you will have fallen so far behind that you will be FORCED to learn about the 'new stuff' and you will have to begin anew all over again... and I don't know about you, but I hate being a newbie

And while I'm giving my unadulterated opinion, please consider removing the 'fading' stuff. Sure it looks cool.... on first glance. But if there's one thing I've learned it's that functional elements in a site have to be highlighted instead instead of faded. Cool effects are for non-functional elements. Stuff that a person could look at once, think it's cool, then simply ignore, because that is what they will do. Only, with the faded part on the functional stuff, they are forced to deal with it and will loathe it in the end, because it makes their every day experience more difficult. Something people in general DON'T want.
Okay, so maybe I am exagerating here, I mean... what does it matter?
Problem is that I do something like this for a living (I love saying that ) and I have learned the hard way how users detest 'fancy stuff' that makes their experience with the site more difficult... or worse, they will make YOU hate it by constantly contacting you about how they 'can't quite read that button' or how they 'can't find their way'.
And I know how much easier it is to unlearn these things in the beginning then to have to do it at a later date.

{/IMHO}

Also, you should try centering the entire thing... that would make it easier to navigate, plus it would be a 'Cool Effect' (TM).
Love your color scheme BTW, that's one thing I have never been good at... color schemes... I guess I'm just not much of a visual artist.

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The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals. We cause accidents.
- Nathaniel Borenstein