[joebadmo]

I agree that the backlash is partly just aversion to change, and partly the fact that we're in a usability canyon because of the transition, but that the integration with the G+ sharing model means a better, more granular future for sharing, which is good.

I wrote a whole post defending the change here: http://blog.byjoemoon.com/post/12261287667/in-defense-of-the...

Regarding the visual design, I hope they'll take cues from the Gmail redesign, which hit a really great balance between clean whitespace-full minimalism and density configurability.