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I totally agree with you. Another specific change that is hard to defend is the new "..." three dots to expand hidden parts of the conversation from previous messages. It used to be text that was clear and large enough to click on. Apparently the Gmail team hasn't learned about Fitts' Law, and the new target is pretty hard to hit with a mouse.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts%27s_law

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Fitt's law is useful for two insights: The obvious one is that things you want to be easy to click should be large/close, but the less obvious one is that things you don't want to be easy to click should be small/far.

The "..." dots is probably an example of the latter - I'd guess that Google wants people to view entire conversations by expanding the conversation view, not by clicking "...", so they make one way much easier than the other.

That trimming is extremely poor as well -- doesn't just clip parts of the conversation from previous messages, but parts of my current message! It drives me up the wall. I have had it trim my entire e-mail, then have to awkwardly explain to the recipient that they should click those three dots to see what I'd written. It's insanity, and when I called Google tech support about it... oh wait, LOLsupport.

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