[mourique]

I think they did this to promote the menu bar to all non-tech or non-internet people. I can think of a lot of people who might see the bar for the first time because it itches their eye (my mum for example). It's kind of a meta-element made for browsing the googlesphere (aka internet?). I like it.

But they still have this _blank opening new tabs for mail, cal and everything. That's just bad.

[panacea]

It also seems to become something more like the Windows taskbar, or the osX dock/menubar. It's the 'Googlebar'.