There is plenty of room for polishing the default UI. But...
1) Google+ != Twitter. They are competing with Twitter, but that is an argument against making a Twitter clone, not for.
2) A tiny number of users would use those configuration options. Adding options that will benefit a minuscule number of power users and confuse everyone else is not a useful way for the G+ team to spend their time.
This false argument gets repeated over and over. You dont have to bombard everybody with a zillion of probably unneeded options. Separate the everyday from power user options. The poweruser stuff doesnt even have to be obvious, it is sufficient to make it possible. Theres no need to make setting a option outright impossible, if you only goal is to prevent confusing users who will never find it in the first place.
I see your points, and I'm definitely not suggesting G+ should be a Twitter clone, but at the moment I'm seeing that the whole concept of 'following' peoples posts, whether you know them or not, is being used (and encouraged by G+) so I think it needs some improvement.
In regards to the configuration options, I'd suggest that perhaps the defaults should be changed.
As I commented in the article, I just added a free Chrome extension to the Chrome web store today that collapses every post and adds an expand/collapse toggle bar to them.
The other thing you can do is use the keyboard shortcut 'j' to jump to the next post ('k' goes to the previous) so that you can quickly move through a large number of posts without using the scrollbar at all.
In addition to the problem noted in the OP, a problem I noticed is that there does not seem to be a way for me to make available a series of posts to persons A, B and C (suppose they are members of a club I am in) without A, B and C's posts showing up in my stream. Suppose for example that I want A and B's posts in my stream, but not C's because C posts too much wacky shit.
So that's another way I'd like more control over my stream.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 25.1 ms ] thread1) Google+ != Twitter. They are competing with Twitter, but that is an argument against making a Twitter clone, not for.
2) A tiny number of users would use those configuration options. Adding options that will benefit a minuscule number of power users and confuse everyone else is not a useful way for the G+ team to spend their time.
This false argument gets repeated over and over. You dont have to bombard everybody with a zillion of probably unneeded options. Separate the everyday from power user options. The poweruser stuff doesnt even have to be obvious, it is sufficient to make it possible. Theres no need to make setting a option outright impossible, if you only goal is to prevent confusing users who will never find it in the first place.
In regards to the configuration options, I'd suggest that perhaps the defaults should be changed.
Makes things a lot more condensed and manageable.
It's called gpMin and can be found for here: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ekdhfgmnpfbmhhdaij...
I'll put the code up on git in a day or so when I get some time.
So that's another way I'd like more control over my stream.