The character and nation selection isn't very obvious about what is currently selected.

Character selection only has a slight color change to the associated button and location text

Nation selection when creating a new character is only indicated by a slight color change in the button text and the description text changing

If the background color of the frame for the currently selected character or nation were changed, it would make the selection more obvious.

Are you talking about character creation, or pre-existing character selection?

Those are very different interfaces, obviously.

Character creation currently is still using the old UI. All those interfaces that use the old UI are being replaced.

I was referring to both character selection and character creation.

I should probably mention that I'm running Linux. So I can't see any current improvements.

for reference, the "AngularUI" option makes the character select screen look absolutely awesome like this:

Okay. That does look a lot better and addresses my concerns.

Yes, that's basically part of the new interface, also mentioned on the Game Development Direction sticky thread, specifically:

Updated User Interface - Some versions have some pieces of the new UI, but it will be completely fleshed out across the entire game, with (hopefully) a significant rethinking of the User Experience. This is inter-dependent on other UIs still in the works, like the "Player Administration" stuff mentioned above.

I do hope it will be completed before too much longer, and get rolled out everywhere. But, well.. as we all know, my "hopes" don't always work out as planned, heh. I had hoped it would be done some time ago.