New Gmail Interface Sucks

Have a gander at what Google is about to inflict upon its user community:

• At the left center is a left arrow. That, from within a message, indicates return to the containing folder. This isn't new, and is fairly intuitive.
• Next is a box with a plus sign in the middle. We're supposed  to magically intuit that this means archive. Yup, much clearer than using the word "Archive.".
• Then we have a circle (very close inspection makes it out to be an octagon) with an exclamation in it. I don't know about you, but I don't find spam exciting, so never in a million years would I have guessed that this button marks the message as spam. Certainly is clearer and more intuitive than the current button labeled "Spam."
• Next over is a trash can. Fine.
• This is followed by a shape vaguely similar to a manilla file folder. Much clearer than the current button labeled "Move To."
• This is followed by, maybe, a luggage tag, which is supposed to represent "Labels."
• Not shown in the above screenshot the right and left arrow buttons, retained from the prior interface, which move to the previous and next message. Which goes to previous and which to next? Hell if I know--I always guess wrong the first time. Yes, a bad interface feature from the prior Gmail version retained for the next Gmail version.

So Google is screwing up Gmail just like they screwed up docs, though maybe not as bad as they are screwing up the Blogger interface. There's an airhead in a video explaining why they are doing this, but it all comes down to "some illiterate moron thinks pictures are cooler than words."