Google Messages redesign: what do you think of the new UX?

Google rolled out a Messages redesign this week. Reactions I've seen are split between 'cleaner' and 'why did they move everything again'. From a UI perspective I'm interested in how they handle density vs whitespace on smaller phones. Anyone have a take on what they got right or wrong? Bonus: Figma is training a model that edits designs natively, which might make this kind of redesign churn even faster.