PSE 11 New layout - too far the opposite direction?

Question

I have been a long time user of Photoshop Elements, I think since version 2 or 3. I went from 6 to 10 earlier this year and have been working with a Trail version of 11 for a few days now. Overall, I like it, but like so many companies do, when they address a major concern of a large group of customers, they go too far in the opposite direction.
Two major complaints about PSE up through 10 are that it is A) too dark and B) the control icons/text are too small and difficult to see. This is mostly a complaint of the visually impaired. (Which is an interesting side-discussion, given that photography is a visual art).
Although I liked the dark layout, I tended to agre with most users about the latter complaint. The icons and text were difficult to see even for people with good vision. With PSE 11, I see the exact opposite, the layout is too bright for my tastes. After all, the purpose of this software is to work with images. A dark layout lets me focus on the image itself, and not be distracted by the controls.
That much I can adapt to, but the bigger problem is the screen real estate taken up by the Tool Options. It's HUGE! Especially when working with images in a vertical format, which represent a significant percentage of my images. For example I love to play around with vertical panoramas, an often overlooked way to capture a scene such as tall trees, buildings, etc.
I am finding myself constatnly havign to toggle back and forth between the Tool Options bar, and even with the F4 keyboard shortcut, it's a pain in the butt.
So... my opinion is that Adobe fixed a couple big problems for a lot of users but went too far and created a different set of problems for many other users. Anyone have any thoughts on this?
What I'd like to see are some different solutions:
First of all, I'd like to see an option between dark and light layouts. Let users decide. Kinda like making the program skinnable, but not all that many options are needed.
Or... how about an auto-dimming feature? When the mouse is hovered over the image area, while working with the various tools, automatically dim the surrounding panels and menu bars. Then, when you move over the panels and menus, they would return to normal.
Second, find a better solution to the Tool Options bar. Either make it A) moveable, like the other panels, B) resizeable, or C) auto-hide it.
At this point, I've almost decided that the size of that Tool Options Bar is a deal breaker and I won't upgrade. Vertical real estate is hard enough to find on computer monitors and Adobe took up 25% of what little I had. I'll wait for a future version to see if they take it back the other way.

Answer 1

True, and I have that option enabled. Given that I need to use the Tool options, primarily Crop, with different settings on each individual image, I am finding myself opening and closing the options bar constantly. I have two options: have it pop up when I don't want it to, or I have to open it when I want it, then close it afterward. Either way, the resulting workflow is tiresome at best.