I can see your shots but too cluttered, unorganized ... make images smaller and draw some arrows pointing where ads are.....
you must have some big screen then ok anyway I would use some 300x250 or similiar ad format inside text ... you know floating there and get rid of that 468x60... In the first image you posted it just doesn't look good
I know you can place adsense sneakily into articles and such on blogs like inside the article, but if your userbase is a little more "internet" than the average person surely this would turn them off? I mean IMO it's okay if you're selling something like e-books or garbage, but if it's a site like engadget or digg then your users are going to demand quality and are coming for the articles, and having obtrusive ads in articles would surely put them off. Am I right in thinking this, that it looks unprofessional and could lose you readers? I would like to think that placing them in other places would work, but does anyone have evidence or experience of this particular thing? It's a professional site, not a seo, fishing, gardening, recipe blog. Is that the only way?
If you have "something to read" ads will not turn people down. You have to publish good articles and informations, interesting etc etc and be a whore at the same time if you know what I mean