The reason the new design is so much worse is that it uses the most valuable space on the screen, the left side (since we read left to right), for stuff users don't care much about. What users care about most on a page of search results is the search results. Those should get priority. Instead the prime space is given to stuff that's boilerplate, or only tangentially relevant, or both.

I'm surprised Google would make a mistake of such magnitude. Anyone who's read Tufte would know not to do this. They've effectively reduced the data-ink ratio of the page, when you weight each pixel by its proximity to the upper left corner.

http://www.infovis-wiki.net/index.php/Data-Ink_Ratio

http://inspiredimpressions.files.wordpress.com/2006/04/Googl...

Oddly enough, it would actually be better if the left bar were entirely boilerplate, because that would make it easier to tune it out.

http://www.useit.com/eyetracking/eyetracking_corporate_site_...

Then the new design would merely waste space. Filling the left side of the page not merely with crap, but with changing crap, is the worst case scenario.