I don't understand the logic behind the new tiny compose window, it looks like something from an IM program. If I'm composing an email surely the most important thing is the thing I am composing, so why give it 1/4 of the screen space?
The second most important thing is the email I am replying to, but the compose window pops up over the top of that obscuring a chunk of it.
Whats even more confusing, is when I double-click on users I used to use to g-chat to, it pulls up the message and I end up e-mailing them instead of messaging them. This is easier to do now that the e-mail window looks like a chat window.
I've noticed others doing this as well. They e-mail me without a subject and its context is from a recent chat.
I think the logic is that you can search through email for things while composing. e.g. I'm composing an email and referring to something in another email I got a few days ago. I can search for that email, read it, and then get back to composing. Perviously I would have had to save the email I was composing as a draft, find my other email, then go back and open the draft.
With the "old" compose UI, you can/could click the box-with-arrow button to transition into a new browser tab or window. Solves the same problem without trying to re-invent windows in HTML. I'm guessing this didn't work (well) on Chrome OS or something?
I've imagined one of their primary internal use scenarios to be Googlers with "giant" monitors who are managing multiple simultaneous email and chat conversations. The new interface turns Gmail into something of a "windowing environment" wherein all that multitasking can be managed within the smaller, quasi-pop-up "windows".
I don't particularly like the UI changes, myself. But then, I'm not... well, to cut it short, I'm increasingly aware that I am not / am no longer Google's target demographic.
The second most important thing is the email I am replying to, but the compose window pops up over the top of that obscuring a chunk of it.