[phnk]

Skipping the "UX Pro" creds, I trust that the rest of your post is correct: Google has well-paid UX engineers from the best places.

That's precisely what I find scary about those UX changes: they to run counter-current of everything I value in UX (clean and compact vs. bloated and spread out).

[dave333]

UX will eventually become fully personalized to the user's preference rather than the latest fashion vaguely branded to the site owner. If they could figure out how to personalize the UX as well as they personalize ads...