Am I the only person that had a "Promotions" filter added to their Gmail ages ago? I've also not got the new tabs, either. I'm wondering if I am in some lost zone.
I've been using the label:^smartlabel_group, label:^smartlabel_notification, and label:^smartlabel_promo filters for probably over a couple years now. I have all notifications and promos "skip inbox" and I just go check those labels a couple times a day or when I have a password reset email (which almost always goes to notification). These filters absolutely keep my inbox (which is itself split into 'regular' and 'priority') sane. Having this set up, I don't really see a reason for myself to get the tabbed interface.
I also don't have Promotions tab either. I just tried editing Settings and Saving, and still no Promotions tab.
I use lots of filters and labels to categorize my mail already. I have label 'Shopping' and have a bunch of filters set to skip inbox, so I only see it if I click the 'Shopping' label. This works well for sales emails I am subscribed too, but doesn't help for new sales emails, although most of that ends up in the Spam folder.
Google is known for doing partial and test roll outs. E.g. some 5% of users may get a change so they can do metrics on it, then later on they may keep the change and roll it out more or get rid of it.
