Yes, it is nearly unusable for me now and it is getting worse. I've thought a lot about it and I believe the problem is related to the requirement of getting new users. Back when Gmail was 'new' it had to be like Eudora or another standalone mail program (or Netscape Communicator if you remember that far back) in order to convert people. It did a good job, but 'new' people, people who have never used a standalone email client think it is 'clunky' and 'ugly.' To get those people it had to be more like IM or facebook A big square to type in, and then trying desperately to pick the right person to send to. Things we oldsters did all the time like maintain multiple email identities was 'cruft', people who called each other 'bro' and 'totalph33r' were the target demographic for the 'new' users. And to some extent all those people who really don't know of what email really is but they use it anyway.
Computer users, which is to say people who use computation devices for arbitrary tasks, and invent new uses on the fly, are not the majority demographic anymore. We are a 'specialty group.'
You'd think they'd put together another team and make a separate frontend. I mean, surely they can build two web interfaces to the same backend storage servers, right? They should have plenty of programmers to throw at the problem.
The fact this hasn't happened probably says a lot about the situation, both technically and politically.
I wonder sometimes if it is the whole 'agile architecture' thing where one person can decide "Oh we're going to change protocol buffers for this service, I'll just push that out ..." and the collateral damage is far and wide. I used to think people who complained about the poor IMAP implementation were just unwilling to go with the flow, and then had the flow take me down to where most flows go after they have come out of the faucet :-).
The next step in the evolution is 'personal' clouds I think. An Internet appliance that you own that you use for mail and media and what not. Back to the future-past but with a more resilient design. Perhaps that idea will bear fruit, it isn't like its getting better in the "internet clouds."
I still think that desktop outlook is the best email. Email is not a stream of random information but things I need to look at and act upon. The amount of magic in gmail makes this use case impossible.
Computer users, which is to say people who use computation devices for arbitrary tasks, and invent new uses on the fly, are not the majority demographic anymore. We are a 'specialty group.'