Syz

Why did they bother with minor GUI improvements? It's still going to be terrible, so why waste the time. The only way to make it work is to do major changes, major as in another complete overhaul.

Did you try unchecking Cookies and Autocomplete?

The performance gain from flatter looking textures and simpler boxes is nothing (though there is probably performance gains above Aero for other reasons, such as Aero being poorly implemented). This isn't the reason Microsoft did it, nor is it the reason any other applications do. Its just a bad design choice that companies follow because they prefer trends over logic. The problems with the new UI goes far beyond just being a more "modern" style. They could have made it somewhat decent with the more Metro theme, but they simply did a lot of things wrong with the theme.

I made an account just to mention that the UI is terrible. Everyone I know agrees, but are too lazy to mention it. I understand making it match with the UI of modern Windows (though no one wants it), but you don't have to make it look terrible to do so. Matching metro is a automatically a downgrade, one people will reluctantly accept, but you downgraded your look more than any other application I've seen yet. That includes the ones that went from wasting 40% screen space to wasting 80% of it. Not only did your artists do this bad, but the people in charge of of product quality didn't notice? Make it modern if you want, but please make it look professional and not so unappealing to the eyes. It looks ugly and childish right now. Kudos to the programmers by the way. The program runs great, though I'll by running it more rarely now so I don't have to see it.