I can see that a lot of people don't like the popup, but the reason why escapes me completely (apart from those suffering the 'flashing' incompatability with IE image tools).

There is a good half-second delay between cursor-thumbnail first contact and popup display. This means you can move your mouse all over the screen without it coming up. It also means that you can click on a thumbnail and open the image display page without seeing the popup. If the popup does display, it goes off the instant the cursor is moved off the thumbnail. It even goes off automatically after a short period should you suddenly lose the ability to control your mouse. And when you do want to see the popup, you can position it away from the image.

Are some folks browsing the thumbs by moving their cursor over them as they go, or something; like a kid reading? I mean, I have the hand-eye coordination of a window impacted bird, and I can look through the thumbnail pages without seeing the popup at all. It's not even a conscious effort - I've always kept the cursor away from the thumb because I don't like the silly pointy-hand thing stuck in front.

Now I'll admit that the popup contains way more information than my needs (I'm only vaguely interested in dimensions and image size), but it's pretty easy to just not read the rest.

So come on, someone explain to me what the big deal with the popup is.