well I just took a quick look, but that is a very nice looking site
I totally agree with you on the banners, I've been trying to make more text oriented sites too and tracking them to see what happens. Plus it's more fun making up the text than just slapping a banner up
couple of things I did notice - the banner on the top of the index page should be unlinked as it may be considered blind (thumbs)
the other is the gallery links are pretty low on the main page, this may or may not cause you problems.
I didn't really look at anything else so see what other comments come in but I did want to say it's one of the nicer looking sites I've seen in a while
Ponygirl