Bitt, you're correct in that some of the specifics/facts of the reason Doug is reacting aren't concrete, however I do think his reaction to the presence and activation of this feature is justified. Updating a UI and moving some things around is one thing, but this move is invasive. It shows complete thoughtlessness on Google's part. There's no valid case for an opt-out situation here. They've already got the ability to install options/expansion. This could have been posted as some landing page when you first logged in this week or sent as an email or even just included as a marked item on the page until you checked it out and dismissed it.

I'm happy to report that Buzz has not been added to the Google Apps private-branded version of GMail. This would have been an even greater disaster and I would have been livid if my customer support email system was going through their servers.