Honestly, it irritates me. Fortunately, like Matt, I seldom type in searches on the Google web site proper. Also, when you turn it off (Google has usually been really good about providing options for this sort of thing, with some notable exceptions), it reinstates the bottom search bar.

The thing that this points out to me more than anything else, though, is that people still don't know what that big key above the right shift key does.

The only real way this speeds anything up is for people who type in their search and then click on the "Search" button. Idiots.