This change doesn't even touch Inbox. It removes the surrounding "chrome" and adjusts the whitespace. That's not nothing as it focuses the UI, but Inbox was

This change doesn't even touch Inbox. It removes the surrounding "chrome" and adjusts the whitespace. That's not nothing as it focuses the UI, but Inbox was far more than that. Not that I don't appreciate the time invested. The design was welcome, to be sure. But there were far more important features to getting email out of the way. Automatic, inline message grouping by travel, priority, sender, etc; Advanced snooze that included "snooze until delivery date" for packages; Infinite Snooze, which was great for bookmarks with notes; Big, clear done / delete buttons; No ads - not that I expected that to last. It's been long enough that I've begun to forget the other features since I switched back soon after the announcement, but moving back to gmail has been jarring. The old design is confusing, yes, but I can manage as I'd used it for a decade prior. The design was essential, but mostly icing.