Commiting my work of last Sunday:

 - removed ban.inc and ban.module and integrated it in account.module
   under the name "access control" --> the ban code was not really up
   to standard so this has now been dealt with.  This refactoring and
   reintegration cuts down the code size with 100 lines too.  :-)
   (The ban.module code was really old and it showed.)

 - added node.module and made the other modules reuse some of this
   code --> cut down the code size of modules by at least 100 lines
   and adds stability.

 - added a status() function to admin.php to display a conform status
   message where appropriate.  See admin.php for usage.

 - removed $theme->control() and made comments.inc handle this itself
   wrapped in a $theme->box().  No need to clutter the themes with
   such complexity --> updated all themes already. :-)

 - some small visual changes to some administration pages to be more
   consistent across different modules.