11/14/2012 : Just uploaded an update which moves the search field and Google Plus / profile links to the black google toolbar permanently.
**** THIS LATEST UPDATE LOOKS BEST WITH THE HIGH CONTRAST THEME (GO TO SETTINGS > THEMES AND SELECT THE "High Contrast" THEME). IF THERE IS ENOUGH DEMAND TO KEEP THE DEFAULT LIGHTER THEME I WILL UPDATE THIS TO MAKE IT WORK WITH THE DEFAULT LIGHTER THEME AS WELL.

6/27/2012 : Updated hover effects to gradually fade in and out.
6/21/2012 : I tweaked the styles so it works in Firefox as well as Chrome. Please let me know if you see any bugs / issues.
6/20/2012 : I just uploaded a brand new version which works with Google's latest code update. There are a few changes; read below.

- Removed the logo and placed the search field on the main button toolbar. The login menus were moved up to the black Google bar, how they used to be.

- The following tweaks were made to the left sidebar / label area:
- Compose button removed (I use keyboard shortcuts).
- Chat block was removed (It can easily be displayed again if you use it; just search for "CHAT BOX" in the styles and remove the height property and value).
- "More" labels link was removed and all labels are now displayed and divided into three sections. Which section a label is displayed depends on what settings a user has chosen for that particular label. These settings can be updated in the normal Gmail settings. The first section of labels displays any labels user has chosen to "Show" AND any labels that have unread messages IF the user has chosen to "Show if unread" for that label. The section section shows the default Gmail labels (such as "Starred", "Sent", etc) which the user has chosen to "hide". The last section shows all of the other labels.
- Better highlighted the active label and gave attractive hover state to all labels.
- The "Manage Labels" and "Add New Label" links were moved to the very top of the labels and the "Add New Label" was changed to "+".

- The theme colors were tweaked to give more focus to the main message area.

- Various tweaks were made in spacing of objects to give optimal screen space and make look more consistent and attractive.

- I use the "Boomerang" extension for Gmail, so some minor style tweaks were made to adjust spacing, etc, for the boomerang buttons and elements.