It would be nice to have a navbar editor in the admin section.
That allows you to modify any theme's navbar without going through the code, because for some of us modding the code of a template ins't easy.
Bit of a problem in 1.1 because the navigation bar is only in the theme, and not all themes support it.
What would need to be done is a template system for the menu bar. I know on my forum my menu bar is completely custom. The way Coppermine gallery handles the menu bars is neat. The basic concept is this
$menu_template = '
<ul>
{MENU HERE}
</ul>';
$menu_item_separator = '';
$menu_item_template = '
<li><a href="{LINK}">{TITLE}</a></li>';
There is something similar in 2.0 so that all themes can get new menu items without editing the themes themselves.