This happens every time Facebook (or any other major site for that matter) makes a change. A few months from now everyone will forget about it and get on with their lives. At least until they change it again, when everyone flips out and wants the 'old' layout back (eg, the one they're complaining about today).
Your analysis is much too simplistic, and lumps a number of very different episodes of Facebook change into one common pattern when in fact they differed significantly, and what happened after was different.
See my comment in reply to devicenull for more detail.
This happens every time Facebook (or any other major site for that matter) makes a change. A few months from now everyone will forget about it and get on with their lives. At least until they change it again, when everyone flips out and wants the 'old' layout back (eg, the one they're complaining about today).