When I come to Glitch, I usually just sign in and see my home page, then enter the world. I don't really visit the forums regularly, I don't read the blog posts or follow on twitter. As such, I often miss major announcements like the new skills and items and the un-launch. To me, these seem like pretty major things to have missed when I logged in and viewed to main pages.
So, my suggestion is simple; add a little box at the top of the home page when you've logged in that links to recent Staff-created topics and announcements in the forum, similar to the Hot Topics box at the top of the forums themselves. The home page is a page that most glitchen will end up seeing at some point, and so everyone can be in the loop.