Fair enough. I have it on, not much of a problem for me to recognize the apps but it gives a much more consistent look to my home page. I agree that Material You has sacrificed productivity in favor of appearance, and a lot of people may not like it. Meanwhile, I personally don’t have much of a problem with that.
Can’t you turn it off?
Nothing substantial. They do it with every version.
They want to avoid Meta from repeating history:
Check out Beeper