Nevertheless, I feel like this is one of these half-hearted Google projects and doesn't fully live up to its potential. This relatively subtle UI change is a good example that they don't seem to care too much about taking it further. I just pray Google doesn't shut it down one day.
Scholar too felt ignored like its a bastard child, but this new update looks promising, not in term of their changes, but due to the fact that this implies they haven't boxed it yet. Also, they haven't "revamped" the search, so I'm not worried about the core functionality.
Most likely this behavior stems from the fact that this service doesn't generate revenues for them (I'm assuming so, please correct me if I'm wrong). If so, then how does a small company keep up its own academic search portal?: Semantic Scholar by Allen.
Considering that there are quite a few researchers working at Google, I can imagine that the fact that they have this tool available to them indirectly causes some revenue. (And also, goodwill in the academic community, i.e. a community of potential future employees.)
Full disclosure: I worked on Semantic Scholar.
Presumably you'd be happier if the UI changed from week to week?