Maybe we just use Slack differently, but I find just staying in Home largely mimics the old interface. Enough so that I don't really mind this redesign. Anything that pops me out of Home is jarring and unwelcome.
I like that DMs are pulled out from channel activity. But "Home" for me is such a hot mess of hundreds of channels with no easy way to discern important things from noise.
It really feels like the intended usage is to ignore white dots and focus on red, but then we really need a setting to remove all white dots who really can't proceed to real work until they're gone.