The art looks wicked!
Agree on the chat background. If it was me I would just use a transparent almost black color, maybe tinted ever so slightly towards the orange/red.
Personally I would also make the center art, assume you want to put minimap there, a standalone minimap art.
I like bigger chatframes, so a center minimap takes up my valuable screen width.
Would be interesting to see someone make unitframes to match the look.