Or you could just have the pending messages section have a link/tab/dropdown so you can access pending members there too.
Keep the members going to the member list but have pending have a direct connection to pending messages and pending members.
I vote against getting rid of the new admin menu ( no surprise) :) - but am all for making the navigation simpler for pending items - without sacrificing the other important pages that one goes to maybe less often but that also require easy access.
