Yep, I think that’s (at least partially) true, even if it’s not explicitly acknowledged in the company. Same with Google and their endless new projects: what else would all those smart engineers do? Support existing projects? Yeah, let’s see how many of them won’t leave to build new things in some startup in a few months. It’s a balancing act on the part of any company employing creative people, I imagine.
I mean, you do need designers for whenever you add new features, and you want really great ones for that. But those really great designers want to do something, and there just aren't enough new features to keep them busy.
I mean, I don't dislike the aesthetics of the change, but yeah, I just wonder, "Why?" I agree with the few (what I think are relatively minor) specific issues that have been pointed out where utility has decreased, and I'm finding it difficult to point to any particular change and say, "Yes, this is better than before."