One thing that I don't think will ever work is a large intermediate screen as the primary method of switching tabs/pages. It's interesting that you'd say that,

One thing that I don't think will ever work is a large intermediate screen as the primary method of switching tabs/pages. It's interesting that you'd say that, because it's not at all what I'd expect. There are two factors you might not be accounting for here: that the transparency of the tab display would make clear that the screen is a temporary one, intended to aid navigation, and that the quasimodal interface, where you have to hold some hotkeys down, keeps transparent navigation overlays from distracting from the browsing. Check out Enso for a live example: www.humanized.com Additionally, the tab display can be scaled down to whatever level the users end up desiring: recall that navigation is done by dragging and zooming. I will admit, I'm coming at this from the direction of 'what is the ideal navigation system', not 'what will, for the immediate term, make the most people comfortable'. I suspect that the system is fairly easy to learn, unobtrusive, and that in time greater efficiency will win out. I agree with your assumptions. In particular, keeping the tabs system on different screens from history is terrible. But I must not fully appreciate your sense that the history gutter will fragment history from tabs. It seems, instead, that since it's part of the same screen, and the same unified system, that it's a step in the right direction. And I think there simply have to be some compromises for people who want their finished tabs done away with. Visual clutter is a serious impediment for many people, me included.