Below is my fix in the form of a bit of css for use with the Stylish addon. It gets rid of the strange 3x-border-crap and replaces it with a red 5px redish border on the left side of the current story. It also changes the link color to a blueish one to make them stand out a bit more. There is a bit of whitespace left in the layout but a lot less than before.
I like it but ymmv with taste being subjective and all. :)
Update: I've added a slight border between stories and moved the search bar and some of the buttons at the top around.
@namespace url(http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml); @-moz-document url-prefix("http://www.google.com/reader/view/"),url-prefix("https://www.google.com/reader/view/") { #main a { color:#1D58A1 !important; } #top-bar { height:0 !important; } #top-bar #logo { display:none; } #search { min-width:0 !important; margin:auto !important; position:fixed !important; top:31px !important; right:-8px !important; padding:5px 0 0 0 !important; z-index:100; } #search #search-input { width:150px !important; } #viewer-header-container { border:0 !important; } #viewer-header { background-color:#fafafa!important; border-bottom:1px solid #dddddd!important; height: 25px !important; padding: 5px 0 10px 5px !important; margin:0 !important; } #viewer-top-controls-container { position:relative !important } #chrome-view-links { float:none !important; } #item-up-down-buttons { float:none !important; } #title-and-status-holder { display:none !important; margin-top:0 !important; } #entries { margin-top:-1px !important; padding-right:0 !important; } .card { padding: 5px 10px 10px 10px !important; border: 0 !important; border-left:solid 5px transparent !important; } .card-content { padding:0 !important; } .entry-title-go-to { display:none !important; } .entry{ padding:0 !important; } .entry .entry-container { padding-bottom:10px !important; } #current-entry { border-top:1px solid #eeeeee; border-bottom:1px solid #eeeeee; } #current-entry .card { border-top:1px solid #eeeeee; border-bottom:1px solid #eeeeee; border-left-color: #dd3030 !important; background-color:#fafafa!important; } .card-actions.card-bottom { position:relative; padding:4px 0 3px 65px !important; background-color:#f0f0f0!important; } .item-plusone { position:absolute; left:5px; top:3px; } .entry-actions .item-star, .entry-actions .item-star-active { display:none !important; } }