I’m happy they backtracked on that. The new tab they introduced was too unintuitive, not really visual friendly.
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macOS Monterey Beta 3: Apple Redesigns Safari Tab Interface Following Complaints
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Lol, and I was just getting used to the change! 😂 I think this is for the best though, it was quite weird the way the address bar could be all over the place based on which tab was active.
Wow. Just updated to beta 3 from beta 2. This new tab bar looks even worse than the original one. Like waaaaay worse. Address bar at the top then wide tabs (i just opened one additional tab) underneath? Eww.
Maybe they should keep the address/search bar separate and stationary but still bring the tabs to the same row to save space.
My biggest complaint with the new (old?) design is having the certificate lock to the right of the address. I always click on it mistakenly now when trying to enter a new address. Much prefer to have the lock icon to the left like it was previously.
Ha, I had something similar happen to me just a short while after replying to your post.
I opened a few other tabs, then there was no x, after cmd-W the other tabs again showed the x, weird behaviour.
Also, no? Firefox never merged the address bar and the tab.
Personally I like the merger. What I don’t like (in Safari and Firefox) is the tabs looking like buttons instead of tabs. they don’t suggest ownership of the page, the sense of hierarchy is lost. Still an improvement on Safari‘s old address-bar-above-tab-bar layout which never made any sense, hierarchically speaking.
Awesome! Do any of the options make the window header more contrasty so the buttons are more visible? On High Sierra the header was a darker shade of gray so the buttons stood out more.
I'm a tab monster user so the new safari pissed me off royally. Thank God they are fixing it, at least some what.
As a UX Designer and Developer, the previous way was terrible and inconsistent. Glad they patched it up. Safari is my primary browser due to three things: Speed, battery efficiency, and focus on privacy. Those are three big factors the Chrome can't match. To regress the UI to make it harder to use was a poor choice. We're at the point of diminishing returns when it comes to browser UI. There isn't much left to reduce, and what is currently remaining is the most important stuff. Any further reduction risks sacrificing usability. Design isn't just how it looks—it's how it works.
I'm pretty glad that I can switch back to the new design. Got used to it really quickly and like it. This new fallback design looks just improvised and displaced. 
Well this is certainly better than the first two betas, but the changes still seem unnecessary. The tab bar in previous versions was perfectly fine. Now, if Apple really wants to reimagine tabs and reduce vertical space they would introduce a vertical tab interface akin to the old school OmniWeb browser (which was a pretty awesome browser back in its day).
The Safari UI is an absolute nightmare. What’s with this collapsible menu inside of a context menu. Gross.
iPadOS…and there is no option to close a tab without first switching to it. Press and hold an unopened tab and you only get the option to close all other tabs. Ugh.
I read it when it was published, two or three times, and if memory doesn’t fail me, this wasn’t specified. I think the article was edited several times.
Also, it would be a bit strange to have so many comments complaining about this change if it was specified on the article, from the beginning.
Restart didn’t help! Try open more than 20 tabs and you see no ‘x’ to close tab!!!