I also think their new image search is a disaster. I like the infinite scroll bar (which bing did before them) but I hate how the images pop in and out. The whole experience is jarring.
I love the new image search, and find the image popout quite useful when I want to see a image in more detail without the jarring experience of actually going to the page, and not having to click next again to see more images. I don't hover around images unless i want to see detail, i press down on my keyboard to see more.