I deactivated on first turning it on, then next day turned it back on and spent some time.

Right now I have three panes, stacked vertically. One is the inbox, one is unread messages with a particular label (which i really had been treating as a second inbox), and third is starred.

In a morning of using it this way It has been very useful, and I find myself actually using the starring function much better.

Stacking vertically made a big difference for me, as I skim subjects and the horizontal layout didn't leave enough subject.