Note that the basic HTML version loads faster on slow connections but everything else is slower, because the big ball of javascript is there to hide latency. It has its niche, but on a decent connection the regular version is faster.

I had it as my default for a long time (i.e. it loaded the simple version when I go to gmail.com), but then I accidentally visited the complicated version and there doesn't seem to be any way to set the simple one as default anymore. I can still use the simple version by using the special link but nevertheless a bit bothersome.