maybe I don't get it because I use Rapportive. IMO there's not much that can be 'fixed' in Gmail, but I see a lot of room for tweaks & customizing in G+, maybe

maybe I don't get it because I use Rapportive. IMO there's not much that can be 'fixed' in Gmail, but I see a lot of room for tweaks & customizing in G+, maybe you could try to enter this field (like there was that Facebook extension to kill annoying elements in GUI)?