Ok, thanks. It took me most of the day but I did sort of figure it out by modifying comment-template.php and changing some stuff in the style.css to shift the avatar to the left.
thanks for the links and tips. Many of the templates say that are compatible with WP 1.2. I guess I will find out if they work with 1.5 too.
hint hint simplemachines.org
it would be nice to have something like serendepity has
