That's exactly what I thought when I saw them. Especially since in the RoC cinematic, he holds up the crown like that. (well... not exactly... but y'know)
This was actually a 3D model or something made by someone for the blizz art contest or something like that... I think.
Those rose petals are indeed the ones from RoC. They are known as "Arthas' Tears" in WoW, which were thrown down upon Arthas cheerfully as he walked down across the path to King Terenas' Throneroom. In WoW, if you look closely and zoom in, you can still see the pedals on the ground over the path he walked in Undercity.
I am working on getting access to the old news portal under a different URL for those that would rather use that for news before we get a different news view.
It is OK though for the main page to open up on the forum in the view it was before. As long as the portal has its own URL so it can be viewed that way I do want to try it as a regular forum view for a while
I switched it to a "Standard" article forum. This will show the thread list like normal, but the threads themselves will have the first post set up above the rest of the "comments"