There are so many things which are just plain uglier and less usefull in CS4 the adjustments pallete icons so damn fugly, and the size of the pallette system being a part of that, and docked windows complaints on the web abound.
luckily you can turn all the ballsed up interface malarkey off, but whats the point of them creating useless interface changes when the users are going to turn most of them off ? The truth is software manufacturers Can only keep theyre revenue stream high by changing things allot and adding new features noone asked for, so most of the time this useless fiddling is done, for there own economic growth model even if it ruins the product for the user.