ain't your every-day rock n roll refugee
I hope Exalead decides to bring back the "old" narrow-your search sidebar, and leave the tag-cloud as a per-user option only.
I appreciate the intuitive nature of a tag-cloud, but now your site is more like every other site which i have grown so tired of 'tag' and 'share' this and 'cloud' that. I realize that may sound crass, but in all seriousness-- your previous "exclude" design was indeed MUCH more efficient for narrowing a search to produce favourable, and even-- less-common, but perhaps better sites hosting never-before-seen material. THAT, i thought was the real beauty of Exalead.
Please see illustration to accompany my commentary here:
http://lh5.ggpht.com/novicenotes/SFV0atX5JbI/AAAAAAAAAec/...
(direct link above - album link below - both private, with auth codes in URL. should work for you, but may be time sensitive)
http://picasaweb.google.com/novicenotes/OEMFeedback?authk...
(note: you will need to use the magnifying glass too to enlarge to full size if viewing the URL directly above)