I like the redesign (but also liked the previous design). Smart design is designing to your target audience, which in this case is the "average" person. MacRumors readers and commenters are not the "average" person, at least as far as interests in tech and tech products are concerned. There is less information on each screen (larger tiles and text and images), which reduces cognitive demands while browsing. A lot of people can handle more information but a lot of people cannot. The added amount of scrolling is fine for most people - they scroll through Facebook feeds, Instagram feeds, etc. all the time. Now with each "page" there is less information, which means people can process the information better. The use of screen space is less efficient but in this case that's a good thing.
I'm not commenting on the highlighted content or anything like that but the overall design is an improvement for the typical person relative to the previous design.
There are of course shortcomings - not being able to sort reviews. Also having app categories at the top of the apps tab would be better (but again, a lot of people go to the app store to discover something new, not search for something from a specific category).
