Maybe I exaggerated a bit and I wouldn't have considered it "incredibly bad" before having the latest version to compare it to, I agree. But the "photo/visual"

Maybe I exaggerated a bit and I wouldn't have considered it "incredibly bad" before having the latest version to compare it to, I agree. But the "photo/visual" vs "text/reading/verbal" switching it imposed on you was obvious in it at the beginning. I know, this is not something that pops up as a "big red flag" to most other UI/X people, but to me it really does. Take HN as an example: the text only interface keeps you in the zone and focused on actually reading peoples' comments and replying meaningfully to the. Take http://www.microsoft.com/ http://www.microsoft.com/ as another one: the pictures swallow your focus and they make it very hard for you to actually read the link texts and decide what to click on to get to what you wanted. Also http://www.bing.com/ http://www.bing.com/ - you use it to search for text, but it bombards you with pictures, so you may actually end up getting worse search results not (only) because the search engine is worse, but because you mind is not "words focused" anymore and you fail to come up with more appropriate search phrase. Also compare https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/ https://www.ruby-lang.org/en/ and https://www.python.org/ https://www.python.org/ on one side vs. http://www.scala-lang.org/ http://www.scala-lang.org/ on the other side (the picture and design totally "unfocus" and disorient your mind so it takes you longer to find the relevant content, like "top language features" even if they are right there on the landing page and very well explained too).