The new design (circa google plus and later) is sacrificing usability for visual beauty. Sometimes precisely one for another. Gmail? What a goddam disaster. Want to add a CC or BCC? a few clicks away. Want to format text? A few clicks away (if you can even find it) Ugh!
Not sure about what she did for Google but I personally think Yahoo's current design shows poor taste, from the logo (redesigned in a weekend) to the huge purple shadow when you scroll. And it's not even that functional: the layout feels cluttered, there is no real hierarchy between elements; overall, it just feels like no one really knows where they are going.
Jenny Holzer's piece is by far the most interesting and opinionated, and still relevant to current discussions on security, leaks et al. Love her take on this.
Sherpard and Davis' are trite in both concept and execution. IDEO's is prophetic, but they're a pretty good forecasting company. Truly disappointed with Sherpard and Davis' though, walkover commercial designers.
Although I guess the first guy's idea was ok (even if the design itself was terrible) as google actually do something similar now