Are they gonna redesign Google now every 2 month? I mean the new Google Bar looks ok, but the "old" black one is stylish too, so why just throw it out after such short period of time?
With the new design, the bar will take over the search feature, which is something you use every day, the single feature every google website shares, so you won't be able to ignore that the bar exists, and with the bar, your G+ profile, which is the real target... I'm not convinced that hiding the links is entirely a good idea though.