Hm... I just realized that each forum type has its own banner. Just for clarity I was referring to the banner on the SmartDark style.
Here's another vBulletin example (at least I think its VBulletin) of a nice banner layout, from Relic's forums
http://forums.relicnews.com/index.php? Adds at the top, then a lenghtwide banner above the forum sections with the Relic logo.
The original ScifiMeshes.com that I showed has sorta of the opposite with the logo as the uppermost banner with possible sponser banners arranged below that.
EDIT: Bah! I typo the thread title... its supposed to be "how about a fancy-smancy banner" not "about about". Can thread title editing be implemented in the current forums like the last forums had?