I feel old portal look to be much catchy as compare to new one (seems to be a word press theme). Giving my opinion from users perspective. Probably technology constraint (application or db layer) or security issues (compliance) might be the reasons.
Right to some extent. May be you are viewing it from a developer's and technology perspective. Older one looked better, newer one feels compact.
It takes time from users' point of view to get used to that.