yea, they've been doing that for at least a year, and it does look better. but unfortunately, they can't deal with sites in some colors, so if you're running a background of anything other than white or grey, you're kind of screwed. After going around and around on that with them, they told me they have no plans to fix it.

yea, they've been doing that for at least a year,

It couldn't have been worldwide then, as I tested them a few weeks back and they were just your normal hyperlink and text.

I thought it was triggered by certain keywords, but I tried different keywords - and on sites that were not mine - but the screen-grabs were on all of them.

I know a while back (possibly a year) that they altered the background colour automatically. (mine was running with a black background for ages before.)

I dunno, I first noticed them last summer on a halloween site. (also on a black background) The thumbnails look great, the rest of the page, not so much. They're also using them with the custom search now.

I have seen the thumbnails for custom search. They have been there for some time now.

These "thumbnails" in the link units are 3 across. (they look like 250x250 in size)

Still not that well targeted, so no change in that department.

They look like the same old links with arrows here.

They look like the same old links with arrows here.

Have you clicked on one of the categories, and looked at the listings?