Being able to link to a folder is a godsend. I hated having to share a folder (editable) when I needed to send someone many files.

However, does this now deprecate the Public folder? I thought that was one of Dropbox's best features: knowing only things in the Public folder were publicly-accessible (with a link)—and more importantly, that files located anywhere else were completely private and NOT web-accessible at all—was easy to grok and explain.

I worry that as Dropbox moves toward its stated goal of becoming the "file system for the Internet" that they will give up the focus on syncing our private files in exchange for the allure of allowing every site and app to read and write from one's Dropbox. That's a worrisome future, indeed.