[jacquesm]

Google has been slowly putting more information in to that same space over the years and hardly anybody noticed. The reason why people noticed this is because google bit the bullet and changed a lot of stuff in one go because these changes are tied in to each other at a level that if they did it gradual the site would not look consistent.

It was a very brave thing of them to do this because they must have realized it would lead to some backlash, but I really can't see how they could have done so differently anyway.

They needed to 'get with the times' again in a way that gives them room enough to get back to small changes, think of it as a spring housecleaning. Give it four weeks and everybody will be used to the new site and this problem will go away.

As things come on the web google is still minimalist, only a little less so than last week.

A bigger issue with google is the creeping pollution of the search results for 'web' searches with more and more non-relevant links to googles own sites and/or paid links.