On a positive side, it is only a tablet. But in near future, having a car botched by similar upgrade experiences, now that is going to be a completely different matter. It is time to realize that the Google is rotting like any other megacorp and no more true innovation (not to be confused with PR innovation) is going to happen unless some drastic measures are put in motion.
You are done, now you can type "ama cthulhu" and there you go. I have there shortcuts for Google (keyword "g"), Wikipedia ("w"), YouTube ("y"), IMDB, CPAN and a couple of other sites and it is really efficient and comfortable.
NAME: Stuffing a modern redesign down the users' throats
TYPE: Antipattern
ACTORS: Site owner, Audience
RECIPE: Take a popular web site. Apply a new design that consists of all hip and trendy aspects, such as big spacing, all-caps etc. Remove a couple of functions or provide some obstructions. Make it confusing and inefficient. In Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution style, remove all alternatives that could resemble old way of doing things. When userbase starts to complain, take a firm stance. Arrogance may be used to make the message clearer (get inspiration from Google UX butcher Jason Cornwell).
RESULT: Enjoy your new redesing. Additionally, you can expect lower costs for site operation, as there will be sharp drop in net traffic.
I dont know what motivation there is for such change. Maybe the architect of Flickr redesign was fired from Y! and landed here. Or the guy who made me use "the new, better, shiny GMail interface" much less than ever before, to the point of driving me off. My point would be that we don't need "presentation for easy information consumption". If there is a site for complex, in-depth, not-easily-understandable news, information and discussion, this is (or used to be) it. If I need easy-to-consume contents, I go to 9gag.
But this farce, where grey comment frames look like forgotten WebDeveloper frame mode... visual clutter, clutter everywhere. Hey, despite the teaching of modern UX dogmatics, even excessive use of whitespace may be perceived as clutter. I have 1920x1080 resolution, full-screen Firefox - and I see 5 comments per screen (3 of them are one-liners)!!
Just to be clear - I am not afraid of change. To prove it, I will simply stop coming here once the "Classic" option is removed. It didn't hurt when I did this with Flickr, I will survive without Slashdot too.
For example, I do have a file 2GB large. But it is 99% empty, as I store only passwords, private keys, scans of various personal documents etc. there, all together takes up a couple of megabytes. If there was a need, I could put a 1,5TB hidden partition there. I would argue that the container file size was based on some assumptions regarding future content...
As an evil virus author, I would add another twist: make the plain-text part of the virus install the font (we know it does so). Few moments later, from within the encrypted code, uninstall the font (we have no clues what that code actually does).
Unsuspecting folks would devise infection detectors, which will give nice "false negatives".
"If I do not want others to quote me, I do not speak." -- Phil Wayne