This minimalistic design has long been a cornerstone of Google's brand. That they are changing this (and why) is noteworthy to anybody who cares about design on the Internet.

If you don't like the story, you can skip over it to the next one. :)

You misunderstood my comment: I said I actually find the addition of wallpapers interesting. My rant is about linking to the good old page after the fact as if that's noteworthy. I mean, Google was going to remove the wallpaper at the end of the day just like they do with their logo art anyways.

Yeah, I think that they added this, faced a backlash, flubbed the rollout, and then did an about-face the next day is noteable for various reasons.