Disagree. The statusbar is barely useful for me - all I use it for is to peek at where links will take me; it's good to save that real estate for content. Things that default to the statusbar (some app buttons) I put up top in the addressbar, with a wide screen there's plenty of room for a few buttons there.
I can't accept a message popping up over top of existing content, distracting the user to a different part of the screen, based on mouse-hover of all things (so it's sure to jump out all the time). They mitigate this a bit by adding time-delays but that's even worse.
The status bar IMO should have more things e.g. download status, but the browsers chose not go to that direction. OK, then remove the statusbar and put the link-direction in the location bar instead during the hover.
The status bar is excellent for what the name indicates i.e. status. FoxyClocks in a great example - allows me to check the time in different countries at a glance, is too wide to fit on a top-side toolbar and basically something that is always present but not obtrusive.
