Save as .png the quality is better. See in the Lickylicky banner, there's some blurryness around the pokemon? That's because it's a jpg/jpeg.
Yeah, they are a bit boring. And don't forget that banners here shouldn't be have a height more than 250 XD
Go to the Tutorial and Resource thread that is stickied here in the fan creations and find the brushes section, download those ^_^ and there's a dafont.com link there. You can download new fonts.