Thanks for sharing your ideas (and for the kind words) cehirsch.
I certainly like the use of a sans serif font. This is a common idea in most of the suggestions that we have received, and I expect that sans serif will be adopted at some point.
Also “flatter” is another common theme. The move away from skeuomorphism toward flat design can be seen everywhere in ‘modern’ icon design, though it’s interesting to note that fashion now seems to be moving a little the other way with “mostly flat”. Subtle shading and shadows seem to be making a bit of a comeback. Unless there is a massive shift in fashion, I would expect that when the Audacity logo is updated, it will be “flatter” than the old logo.
I’ve added your images to the logo gallery.