>From the posted image, is it really that hard to differentiate the not active tabs? There’s a clear pattern: icon, title, close “x”. Yes, there is a pattern,

>From the posted image, is it really that hard to differentiate the not active tabs? There’s a clear pattern: icon, title, close “x”. Yes, there is a pattern, but that's not good enough. If the site doesn't have a favicon, that part is omitted, breaking the pattern. If the title includes emojis, they look like favicons, making another (false) pattern breakage. And looking at the same image you reference, it isn't clear why the "x" icon would close the stuff far away to the left of fromit instead of the favicon/title it is very close to. This is change for "clean design" sake, not usability. Sure, we can get used to it ok, and maybe even start talking about it being a more "beautiful" (a word thrown around waaaay too much in UI design, IMHO) design, but it is a very much less usable design and that's something some of us care about.