But it's bad for compulsive checkers, too, in that it doesn't let you peruse every item in order like the old News Feed design did. It's a ticker, and so far as I can tell, that means that when you miss an item it's gone.
You can still do that if your news feed is set to show "Recent Stories" and not "Top Stories". The mini sidebar is mostly stuff that hasn't been in the news feed for years, like when your friends comment on or like other friends' posts.