I have kind of made a different feel for Elgg. Check out my site - http://serampore.tk

Its custom_index page is more sleek and the nvigation has been recoded.

Are there any themes that don't mess up the widgets?  I can't seem to get any of them to work properly with Elgg 1.7.  Anyone know of any that do?

I had written an article earlier to upgrade templates from Elgg 1.5 to 1.6.1. It could be applied for 1.7 too with an addition.

http://ishouvik.tk/make-templates-compatible-with-elgg-1-6-1

Copy the /views/default/page_elements/owner_block.php? as well and drop it inside the same /mod/THEME/public_html/

This should fix all the issues.