I find the notification (or lack there of) for receiving private messages needs to be improved.
The bold Number of unread messages isn't eye catching enough. (of course this is all IMO) I find myself missing the fact that I have a new message for days, and by the time I get it, it is redundant.
May I suggest a slight font size increase to accompany the bolding?
So instead of seeing
this
we see
this
or even
this
Just a suggestion