As Mr. Gruber says, John Siracusa has been consistently been writing the best reviews of new Apple OSes for years, including his newest on 10.5 'Leopard', which is spot on... almost. While he does manage to link back here on page 4 when talking about the new "translucent" menu bar (which he confirms is using Core Image as a background filter, something we'd figured was the case for a while), he disagrees that even the newest iteration is better than the traditional solid white bar.

As far as I see it, Apple is trying to encourage people to dress up their desktops with fancy backgrounds, and considering the level of transparency that's always existed in other always-on-screen elements like the dock (if you don't hide yours like me, that is), I think it plays well into the overall look of the new desktop.

To everyone wandering over here from the review, to John himself, and all the new menu bar haters out there, I say this: after using 10.5 for a few weeks continuously, go back and use a Tiger system for a bit. I can almost guarantee that the most striking difference you'll notice won't be the old dock, or the old window styles (though those will be still be surprising, too): it will be that flat white menu bar glaring at you from the top of your screen.

(In all honesty though, no one manages to cover all the most important - and contentious - points in an OS review like Mr. Siracusa does. If you only read one Leopard review, it damn well should be this one... it's from Ars after all, so you know it'll be worth your time.)