I always like to hear about bbc making changes because I really do think its one of the best designed sites on the internet, there are annoyances, but considering the vast quantities of information they have to publish I am pretty amazed at how well they do.
Given the structure of the organisation I wish they would be a bit more open though.
It does seem unnatural, but I think it's unavoidable when you're showing images of a web interface inside another web interface (especially one with similar design cues). It's going to look strange either way, but it's a little more comfortable for the brain to keep the boundary when the inner image is tilted or perspective-shifted in some way.
The best answer would be an isolated image over black (or a lightbox effect) but alas their CMS probably doesn't support this kind of display.
I was involved in the last redesign of the BBC News website (2003) which went from a single column site to the current 2-dimensional layout they have today (I left the BBC in 2006).
I like and welcome the changes, which I'm certain were huge in terms of technical work to achieve them. When I worked on it the BBC News Website had 6 month+ type iterations which meant relaunches and redesigns had to be limited to every couple of years.
My biggest grip with the design is that there still appears to be fewer news stories (what we called display items internally) on the page than other sites such as CNN. I am waiting for the site to launch to actually test that.
I also am not sure whether squaring off a single playback box for video is the right approach over blending in lots of video stories as equal citizens to text stories through-out the site (something CNN and others do v well). Again, time will tell once the site launches.
Overall, I'm slightly disappointed there is nothing radically new or experimental (and even a little copied from CNN perhaps) but I know that Paul Sissons and the rest of the design team and BBC News have done a fine job and I look forward to using it.
I like to redesign, looks very modern. Whats strange is how they are trying to do an iGoogle or a customized yahoo experience, if you go straight to their main homepage. I'm wondering if I would really want to use the BBC for my customized homepage.
I believe the BBC's customizable front page is aimed at consumers of the domestic UK BBC output who naturally consume their own personal set of BBC output (6+ TV stations, 7 national radio stations, tons of local radio stations, all of the different programme-related websites).
The idea of the BBC front page (ie www.bbc.co.uk) is that you can pull together a customized front page that reflects the tastes and choices you have in the BBC's output.
Outside of the UK most of those options are not available and so it seems less valuable.
Given the structure of the organisation I wish they would be a bit more open though.