The problem with sticking to an older version of any skin is that new skin versions don't just add new features. They fix old bugs, make changes that are needed to accommodate current browsers, and so on. The "breakage" just gets worse over time. It's always better to stay current. It's like stubbornly sticking with Win7 - the problems just continue to multiply.

The "once a year update" problem is a real one, but the way to deal with it is to make a backup copy of your project, install the newest skin version, make the album, and see how it looks. Usually, this won't produce any big, visible changes.

I routinely remake all of my projects whenever there's a new skin version. It takes very little time to load each project, hit CTRL-S to save some internal changes, hit F9 to make the album again, and then hit CTRL-SHIFT-U to upload it in the background. Using the jAlbum uploader is strongly recommended - it's much faster and more robust than using something like FileZilla.

BTW, I noticed something in your settings that is very dangerous with a JSON-driven skin like Photoblogger. You should pretty much never choose Settings > Advanced > General > Process only updated subdirectories. This may seem like the efficient thing to do. But in all skins, the entire album shares a single CSS file, so pages may have to be rebuilt to accommodate any change in what the skin is doing. And in a JSON-driven skin, the JSON database files must be rebuilt, and if they're going to work properly, they need to be rebuilt for all the folders. Ending up with an album in which different folders were created with different skin versions is a recipe not for disaster, but for mysterious, seemingly inexplicable failures.

I still don't get what is the problem with replicating the original look.

Here's my attempt at this:
http://laza.jalbum.net/Thailand%202016%20nicholls/

You can use File -> Import -> Import settings from a published album and copy paste the URL:

http://laza.jalbum.net/Thailand%202016%20nicholls/

Doing that was leaving me with a lot of defaults from the current skin version, and fairly substantial changes from the older album. A boxed, centered album title and description over a theme image, very different thumbnail captioning options (different position, different content), no top bar navigation, unwanted "link" icon, and so on.

Didn't take me long to alter all of those things, which is where my demo album came from. But the OP wasn't interested in pursuing it, and just wanted to stick with the old version. Wouldn't be my choice, needless to say.

Please look into the album I made. Does that look completely different from your old album?

(Or you'd prefer a white background? That's not hard to do either.)

OK, similar. Font is not as easy to read. No top navigation, but I guess that's irrelevant. I have metadata in there picked up from the photos. The photos wiggle which makes me dizzy. yes I know that's one setting, but I have to find all those "one settings"...

What is 5 minutes for you guys is probably a day at least for someone who only does this occasionally. Maybe 2 days if I decide to get picky. But I see your point. Yep. I did nothing today to let this settle in my mind. I think you are right. I need to bite the bullet with new galleries and use the latest version...

So what's the way to proceed? Not try to bring any settings from other galleries and just bite the bullet and start configuring?

Now, for a bit of custom CSS. There's always some custom CSS.

• Photoblogger > Advanced > Custom code > CSS, delete the stuff that's already there (CSS selectors have changed, so those are ineffective), and add this:

  .hero .head-cont {min-height: 7rem;}
  

  Without that, the header on the folder pages, where there are no long descriptions, tends to be too tall. You might want to tinker with the height to get it where you like it, like 6rem or 8rem.

A couple more little tidbits....

To provide the best show, you should probably bump the image bounds. Under Settings > Images > General > Image bounds > Images, I'd suggest something like 1600x1000 or even 1920x1080, since that's the most common monitor size these days. Might not make much difference on the older scanned stuff, but any modern digital images will benefit.

I would also choose HiDPI thumbnails (but not images). Somewhat better on a regular monitor, and much better on a high-density monitor (like a Mac Retina display). Files are larger, but we're still talking small.

Now, when you're absolutely, positively sure that everything looks hunky-dory (that's a technical term in website design), save this test project. Then you can open any other project, choose File > Import > Settings from Project, and navigate to the jalbum-settings.jap file of this test project.