You did a good job, Havok. My only suggestion is to maybe play around with another (thicker) font. The letters seem a little thin, almost like only 1 pixel.
I agree with Savage's suggestion. Other than that, I say nice job! The tutorial really is helpful, eh? Is this your first time creating a rank image like this?
I think it looks better. The font could do with a little more refining though. Decrease the font size by 1px and set the anti-alias to sharp. With the scaling down of the font I would also increase the spacing of the lettering, and apply an outer glow on a setting of 3-4 or drop shadow set on color burn at a very low opacity. Regardless of that, the second submission looks better than your original. Nice work havoc.