Yes, they appear very intrusive, I can only guess that they are a major reason for the change, but it is simply going to lose regular people from the site. It also seems to add a lot to load times, making the whole site less responsive (not to mention that I can't now find a lot of things such as Fav Artists, not getting ANY notifications any more...). I am hating it so far - surely not the response they were aiming for.