I think that this solution is not very different from previous one. Before this button appeared in the layout you had to double click on an empty space on the tabs panel or do it from tab context menu then there is no free space. By this improvement they solved only small problem(when all the space is occupied with tabs you can’t open a tab with double click), but not the main one – the button is constantly moving. Buy opening new tab "new tab" button slides towards the right side of the screen.

This is bad. Then you have more than 6 tabs opened the button is at the right side of your screen. To open new tab you have to move your mouse through whole screen and then move it back to the left side for example to click on google toolbar search field.

I don’t know why they decided to add that button at all when they could just add their standard "new tab button" in default browser layout.  It’s larger that new one and I always know where it resides.

Simplicity is divine