On first glance — and maybe second and third — Google appears to have just smashed the Gmail and Docs visual aesthetic together with the recent Google Reader redesign, so it's no surprise that it hasn't gotten the most welcome response. Ex-Reader Product Manager Brian Shih dives into the flawed visual and functional redesign decisions on his personal blog, noting Reader was built to shine at just one thing: consuming information, quickly. Google+, on the other hand, is built around social, and the resulting mix shows little regard for the underlying services. Plus, there's the "whole giant header bar with no real estate saved for actual reading."

Thanks, DanTheScienceMan