Lex, i would also disagree with you. Sidebars(that hold the main menu) are a thing of the past. A good design always uses a width of around 900px (if it is desired to leave space on the sides). A very large portion of the users (based on worldwide surveys) use 1024x768 or similar resolutions, even on 22'' monitors... (!?!?)
So a sidebar would only take precious space.. considering that you have to leave space between the menu and the content and make the font small so that the labels don't make it too wide. Take a look at jEdit's website (jedit.org) when i opened it at fullscreen i stood speechless. The text stretches and thus making it somewhat hard to read. I will make this version of the layout, but it's considered as a bad practice for several years now.. Trust me i sit all day reading about user experience and front end development.
As I said above, newbies will if they can't find what they want. If I
can't find the documentation for a new tool quickly on its website I
won't even bother to download it, too much of a waste of time, go
somewhere else