FYI, I found this article really helpful: http://jasoncrawford.org/2012/04/how-to-cope-with-the-gmail-redesign/ http://jasoncrawford.org/2012/04/how-to-cope-wi

FYI, I found this article really helpful: http://jasoncrawford.org/2012/04/how-to-cope-with-the-gmail-redesign/ http://jasoncrawford.org/2012/04/how-to-cope-with-the-gmail-... It shows how to: get rid of "importance" markers, add some contrast back to the colors, remove superfluous whitespace, and most importantly, change the impenetrable icons back to text.