Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
I know a lot of people hated compact tabs

I fear it's precisely due to all the irrational hate the feature got at launch (including on these very forums) that it never received the needed attention, maintenance and updates throughout the few years of its existence and has now been axed entirely.

I also blame John Gruber, for possibly being the main opponent of the feature. I saw multiple times citations of his articles about how it's wrong because the dynamic colors and inbuilt URLs and pill-shaped tabs make him uncomfortable and don't "look like real-world tabs" and how he wants his beloved separate bars instead. Weird guy. To think he created Markdown...
 
dynamic colors and inbuilt URLs and pill-shaped tabs make him uncomfortable and don't "look like real-world tabs"
Made me "uncomfortable", too. Here's an old example of two windows where, in each case, the first tab is active.

tabs.png


Tahoe is at least slightly better about this due to tabs looking vaguely three-dimensional...
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.