I think what surprises a lot of people is that Google would take a premier product like Gmail and make it slower and less user-friendly. Even when you try to u

I think what surprises a lot of people is that Google would take a premier product like Gmail and make it slower and less user-friendly. Even when you try to use the "basic HTML", they decided to not provide a lot of simple features such as basic view customizations (e.g. standard, compact, relaxed). I'm guessing that was done to make sure people use the new UI - so it's use the slow UI or too bad for you. Not sure much will change in terms of the new UI since people are more wedded to their email addresses than say their choice of search engine or maps. When I worked with them back in the day, there was a certain "take it or leave it" attitude at times from some senior people about some decisions in products. This was not all the people and I'm not speaking about the present leadership who I don't know, just that it was the case because back in the mid/late 2000s with my experiences and people I knew via working relationships.