Google likes to keep their project in ‘Beta’, forever is possible. Gmail is one of those forever ‘Beta’ products. If you notice, there is still the ‘Beta’ tag under the Gmail logo.
Up until recently nothing much had change with Gmail ever since the open it to public. It was an invite only deal in the early days, but most people got the invite.
The Gmail team takes good care of the look and feel of the whole app. Even adding a ‘delete’ button is a big deal for them. So to rollout new features they are taking a different approach.
