Once users are deep inside a certain area of the site, tabs lose their meaning if they take users to another area of the site but do not preserve context in any meaningful ways. Such jumps are simply standardized navigation and should use a regular list of alternative links. But unfortunately, users will soon lose any understanding they may have had of tabs as a special design element if more and more sites keep abusing tabs. Thus, I still think that the correct use of tabs is preferred and I recommend using different techniques to visualize the main areas of the site. But this may be a losing battle and I may have to revise this recommendation in a year or so if more and more sites adopt a misguided use of tabs.
Navigation is a secondary concern for users who are on the Web for the content.
Interestingly, CNET itself abandoned the Yellow Fever in 1999 and now uses a design where the navigation links are concentrated on the top of the page, leaving the rest of the screen available for content. I like their new design better. It may waste pixels, but it probably helps users. Two things that are absolutely clear is that the navigation rail has to have some kind of colored background to set it aside from the content and that it has to be on the left side of the page . Thus, placing the navigation rail next to the scroll bar will usually save users time over placing these two frequently-accessed areas on opposite sides of the window.