I confess I haven't really noticed any of the button changes. This is mainly because I am almost 100% keyboard in gmail, though. Send is a quaint tab-enter. :)

I can say every now and then I look for the buttons, but the only one I really ever find myself using is the refresh button, and that is simply if I wasn't already positioned on the keyboard.

/facepalm.

So you've got no qualification whatsoever talking about the new interface as you avoid it entirely.

What I love most is sometimes the important buttons are red and in the top left. But sometimes they are gray and in the bottom right.

Which will it be today? Flip a coin! Consistency is an alien word to the Google Design Team.

I'm not sure I follow. I don't avoid it. They just happened to have not changed the way I interact with it. I confess I did find my old theme a little more pleasant to deal with, but I'm already at the point where I don't remember it anymore.

I'm curious what "important buttons" you are referring to.

I'm also curious how folks that get this worked up over their email client don't go into shock when they get a new car. Consistency is not the norm in life. Seems it is really only a norm when it was dictated by function.

Not that I feel you shouldn't get worked up over what ever you want to get worked up over. I just don't understand it.

When you get a new car, that's because of a choice you are making or a consequence of your actions (such as if the previous one was totaled.) When a website that a person frequents which "seems to work fine the way it is" changes, people get worked up because they see the change as unnecessary.

Similarly, if you are a developer, you might feel the same way if the company you work at randomly decides to switch bug trackers or wikis, when the new ones aren't really any better than before.

I wonder if the anger could be redirected by the realisation that if they were running their own client software, they would be in control of the interface. To realise the dream of free software. But I suspect most of the "rage" will blow over in fifteen minutes.

I'm finding it hard to believe that you down-voted me for expressing a personal observation. Even after I expressly pointed out that it was an anecdote.

I didn't downvote you. Don't assume.

Your entire original reply was an assumption.