Obviously the main reason the Editor menu changed was because it was getting too long and we don’t want to scroll to get to these options.
Popovers that are closer to monitor proportions are more likely to fit without needing to hide/show items or require scrolling. Following are Overlays and Shading popovers aligned more horizontally:
It’s a rare menu, so it’s not important. But any program have menus with 30 options without problems and are easy to use.
The new menu is hard to select one option and read all options
As you saying that menu is not used often and therefore not important, while also complaining the new arrangement is hard to read? If it is not used often and not important then it shouldn’t matter as much how it looks. Just not sure what position you are putting forward.
And it would also be harder to select one option and read all options if it were a vertical list where you had to scroll to see the items on the bottom and therefore can’t see all items at once.
The sample that @jenkm posted for the vote (early in thread) would not have fit on a screen with less than about 1200 vertical pixels. So it would need scrolling on even a 1080 monitor.
Why not just quickly mock up an idea and post it?
The menu itself is 520 px in height.
On my laptop (1680x1050) it’s literally half of the screen.
I have both positions. It’s not important but hard to read anyway.
I never needed to scroll to see the menu. In the PC or laptop.
I don’t see why needs a 1200px screen when the menu needs only 560px…
Like I said. It’s not important. But if i no one program use multiple columns list is for one reason, i’ts hard to find things in multiple columns and it’s really easy find something and remember in only one column.
Yes, you are certainly right. I was looking at the size of the image you posted (2345x1350) without actually noticing that it was at “2X” scale.
I’m starting to prefer the “two-column” doodle I posted above… LOL
It’s better than the four columns, of course.
Left is the best imo. No clutter look. 
Trying to examine why I like my own better…
It is most likely just the greater separation between sections. Being able to digest the list in smaller parts.
So it might be my old eyes (I now need reading glasses for work) that explains why I’ve always felt the separators in menus (and the Properties Tab List) aren’t strong enough. For me I need separators that look more like this:
Left is best. With the left you’ll early memories the position of each option.
Try to remember that in blender all that is little, you don’t have the 2x factor, and you don’t see all things in same way.
I feel like memorising the position of something in a long list is way harder than if that list is split up into several groups.
I prefer the horizontal based menu because it’ll be easier to memorise and parse.
FYI it’s not a unique-to-2.8 thing, it’s in the 2.79 experimental (gfx card forced me onto experimental, has a few other menu movements that are awful, though. Edge data submenu I’m looking at you…)
2.79 (experimental) vs 2.80 (with some colour, I’ve got my icons installed)
They actually made the text harder to read, and the icons pop less, too. That dimming of menu items I ran into is everywhere in 2.8 menus it seems.
Yes, the original idea was this:
and it looks very good, no problem here, and like this:
also looks very good, and no problem with monochrome icons here.
That’s because the columns are very clearly separated (32 px of empty space between columns), and the columns themselves are almost the same height.
But then the developers added more options to the first column, and later, even more, absolutely unnecessary (in this menu) hotkeys.
Notice how the hotkey labels are closer and grouped to the next column than to the title to which they belong. And 40% of the menu area is empty.
There’s also the idea of categorizing to make search easier. But it doesn’t work, especially for beginners. Only animation group is clear and logical (well, maybe scripting too), the rest are too abstract.
I use a 2D program where exactly 30 blend modes and this is the most ordinary menu, and no problem, it always fits into the screen. The blender has 24 blend modes, and for some reason it broke this menu in half. And in a completely illogical place, between Hard Light and Vivid Light modes.
I think that the hotkey suggestion should come out only if you leave a few seconds the mouse over.
The best idea could be like in Zbrush, that you see details when you pulse a modifier key (shift)
Link to a proposal for node editor
summing up,
I don’t think the extra space to show shortcuts is a real problem …
the real shortcoming is the lack of colors that help to distinguish and better identify the icons.
This is another variation that I find easier to use. The four columns look like four columns rather than eight, and each one the same width.
Maybe Color Management have to go to Output from Render tab.
Mostly because it’s setup is more about output of Render, instead of Render itself.
