Just a suggestion, if it hasn't already been suggested.. Is there any way you can make the offline/online icon a bit bigger, perhaps to the way they were before? It seems a tad small right now, and sometimes it's hard to tell if someone's online/offline at first glance because of the small size.
Scroll your mouse over it and the alt text will appear mate. Also i think there is a firefox addon that allows you to edit images (ie perform a search and replace on the links of the images). Try performing a search on the FF website, if there isn't i think i can whip something up just for you Peace out mate.