So... as retro nostalgia, we leave before and now a pics:
I saw this change recently, but I think I liked old style better, it was easier to read because text was bellow icons, not inside them, maybe I just need time getting used to this change. 
I think there was also change in the menu on the left side, some options were removed, but this is nothing major.
Yes but SB as a big company follows the flow of the world and it seems like we are facing the end of the minimalistic approach in everything which I found ok because in some other areas minimalistic was going so hard that nothing have real life (architecture for example).
In web I found minimalistic pretty good and usefully but bye bye.