It seems Google has had these small updates waiting for the big time. And now that times are bad pushing them harder, to bring consumer confidence that Google will continue to innovate and to ensure stock holder confidence. Either way its good for us. :)
I don't think they were holding back so they could use these features as PR. It's the Gmail labs infrastructure that is driving these updates. It's apparently something like an internal extensions platform for Gmail, making it a lot easier for them to develop and try out crazy ideas.
Gmail question: I like the old interface because the contrast between the buttons and background are easier to see faster. So I click "Older Version" in the top right corner of the screen to switch to the older version. The next time I close the window with Gmail in it, and go back to Gmail, I'm back using the new version. All thoughts/solutions very welcome and appreciated.
You can use the new version with the old color scheme. In the settings there is a section for "theme" or whatever and one of the themes is "classic" or similar.
