I like the latest silver and green logo.  The banding gives it nice depth on top, but the bottom could stay flat shaded if you were tempted to keep chunky pixel look.  Blue or silver on top is nice.  I like the final text layout a lot.  Looks great!

Balsamiq is cool for GUI design:
http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups

We have a friend staying for a few days, so probably won't get much done (game wise). I'll be thinking about the design / game anyway.

Maybe they can help with coding?