Leopard iCal (v3.0) takes away functionality and ruins the user experience

Question

Why oh why did Apple DESTROY the usability of iCal present in Tiger with the horrid changes they made to iCal in Leopard? Please, Apple, put it back the way it was.
In Tiger iCal, if I highlight an event, the sidebar pops up intelligently ready for me to enter times, repeats, alarms, notes, or invitees. It was even smart enough to put it to the side with the most screen space.
In Leopard iCal, Apple has taken all that intelligent functionality away and burdened users with way too many unnecessary mouse clicks before en event can be entered or edited.
Now, with "new and improved (NOT)" Leopard iCal 3.0, if I want to add an event in the monthly calendar, I double click on the day, but instead of the sidebar opening all by itself, I must now do another double click on the event itself and yet another click on the EDIT button, all before I can actually enter an event in the real world.
Oh, sure, I can type the name of my event after the first double click, but that's useless for any events with times, invitees, alarms, or notes.
Again, what were the people at Apple thinking? Do any of them actually use iCal?
I check the iCal help and there was something about clicking a button in the lower right hand corner of the iCal window to quicking edit an event, but there is no such button there, only the push pin for to-dos. CMD-I will bring up the event window, but it still requires a mouse click on enter edit mode.
If you agree with me and want iCal back the way it was, please submit iCal feedback to Apple and tell them they got it wrong in Leopard iCal 3.0.

Answer 1

Lot's of folks agree with you.
The following post was very active for a while - 4300 views, 66 post until it was locked without explanation.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1201297&tstart=675
I keep thinking, maybe I'll just get used to the changes and still, every single day the use of this core application is a source of constant frustration. I keep blindly hoping that the iCal team will listen to user feedback and examine the usability of this app.
And for the record, it's never been about the info drawer - it's about overall usability and restoring such basic items as one click editing of content on the calendar, being able to have a usable / expandable long event descriptions and being able to edit with one click vs. three.
For just one instance of how they broke this, just try creating a text entry of 200 characters or more in the "notes" field and then see what happens if you add more text. Unlike this web form which automatically keeps scrolling so you can keep typing....it stops and you have to manually scroll from short line to short line. It's just unbelievable - as if they didn't QA the basic functionality with a single user that does anything beyond the most limited use of the app.