I'd say blindsided is a bit of an over-dramatic term to use. The change SEEMS like a lot, but I don't think the average person would take very long to discover new features and adjust to using them. Incremental change, at least in my opinion, would have been boring and too drawn out. Having this new layout to play with and discover was a welcome breath of fresh air, and I doubt it will be long before we start to see incremental additions to the site and features that may become implemented piece by piece, and by that time, we'll have all become used to how these changes work, and everything should run smoothly from there. I would at least assume, anyway.

I won't pretend to speak for everybody, but from my perspective.. The day the new site was up, upon logging in, it took me completely off guard. Not just aesthetically, but from a functionality standpoint. I have zero experience with this method of communication. I don't Facebook or tweet and the other forums I visit follow the traditional layout that I was accustomed to with Bnet. I just recently started to lurk Reddit, so though I had seen this layout before, I was still very confused as to it's functionality. So I don't think blindsided is an exaggeration at all. But fortunately, as you eluded to, the devs did an outstanding job for the most part. And after spending some time poking around, I did figure it out. And though I still have some gripes, I'm now on board with the changes. But the point I'm making is that such a drastic and immediate change made a site that I frequented daily for nearly nine years almost completely alien to me for the first day or so. I wuz skurd an confrused. And though I did figure it out, incremental changes could have eased the transition greatly. More so, incremental changes would have allowed for feedback to be given on a more "piece by piece" platform; perhaps alleviating some of the freaking out and lack of feedback given by some of the community. There's a rash of threads stating "ZOMG! This site sucks now". But when asked why it "sucks" many won't say more than "Everything. Everything just.. sucks". Granted, some of these people are just bitching for the sake of bitching, and may not give good feedback under any circumstances. But it seems fair to reason that some are just overwhelmed with the sheer amount of feedback they want to give and simply don't know where to begin. Incremental changes would have allowed the devs to say "Here's a change, what do you/don't you like about it" And the feedback would have been more closely tailored to that specific feature or set of features. Allowing for more accurate and detailed feedback, and a real sense that this community was build around that feedback.