I’ve also been puzzled by some of the changes to the UI. I have to say that I was never a fan of the previous UI, and regarded it as the weakest aspect of the program. I never got to grips with it despite over a decade of using the program. However, with the new version, I find myself wondering what the point of the sidebar is. After some dabbling and experimentation, I think a workspace I could live with would be: sidebar collapsed, widescreen view, with items as list. I often find myself with quite long filenames, so dumping the sidebar is a help. And anyway, what is it used for? In addition, the setup in the screenshot is a bit more like Scrivener, which to my mind is a bonus. My personal opinions, of course.
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Adding the files in each folder for the left-pane rather than showing up in the middle-top pane would make it look more like a normal Finder style environment, you could then navigate in the left pane to your liking.
And anyway, what is it used for?
What is the sidebar used for? 
Favorites, Globals (including Inboxes, Tags, and Trash), global smart groups and smart rules, email archiving and scanning, Reading List, updates on DEVONtech news, scripts, and templates…
See: Help > Documentation > Windows > Sidebar: for more information.
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lol
I suppose my question was really “what would I find it useful for?” In ten years and more I’ve only ever used the sidebar for launching recent databases. I don’t really use globals, favourites and so forth. I looked at the Tags “group” about once a year, though I make quite extensive use of tagging in my work. If I want to do a lot of work with tags I prefer to switch to Leap. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always thought DT is a good program: I’ve just never been comfortable with the interface, and so far I’m not feeling much more comfortable with the new one. But it is early days. I’m still struggling to work out how I would do things in the program - by which I mean how would I achieve what I would like to accomplish with this tool, not what button do I press, or which menu item does such a thing. It would actually be easier if I were coming to this version afresh, but previous experience is usually an obstacle to adaptation. There is plenty of evidence in psychological studies for this. Switching off the sidebar is me struggling to adapt.
Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend.
~ Bruce Lee
It’s good advice, but weakening some synapses and strengthening others takes time. (Always interesting when western psychology collides with Asia! 
)
The new UI (especially the sidebar) is in my opinion a big, big, big improvement. 
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I would really like to see a more detailed response to the issues raised by @stanblues999, as they correspond to some of my own use cases. I’m elbows deep in a project right now and don’t have time to play around with the beta, but use DT exclusively in 3 pane view myself. A very quick glance at the beta suggests I will struggle with the transition, and I appreciate all of the tips given so far in this thread as to different workflows with the new UI.
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I have always considered the sidebar a collapsable tool (like the side panes in Lightroom) that are accessible when I need them (working among multiple databases, etc.) but hidden away 99% of the time. The new UI makes it even more useful for this workflow.
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Using the Widescreen evolution I find what I miss is now with the 2nd pane only the filenames appear (List View) now and not (for instance) the Creation Date etc. I can still sort the whole list by Creation Date, but I can’t see the dates of each file as they relate to each other. Only when I select an individual file can I see its Date information.
Using DT3 I didn’t realize how often I compare Dates of files to each other.
This option would be missed.
Beta 2 will support this. In addition, the columns of List views can be always customized (e.g. via View > Columns).
Thanks for pointing that out! When nothing has been picked in the View menu, there’s no title bar to Option/Click for view options. Which is what I was used to doing.
Another vote for the 3 pane view!!!
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If the Three Panes view can return, it should !
… although, a bit like apoc527 pointed out above, if you use list, widescreen, the sidebar itself acts as the first of the three panes - though stanblues999’s points are still pertinent…
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I’ve only briefly played around with the new view introduced in beta 2 (I’m at my iPad right now, but think it was “show documents only” or something similar), so could have missed something, but the biggest issue for me with it is that I can’t hide my other databases, short of closing them all.
I commonly used the old 3 pane view during depositions or in the courtroom, often with a client or another person sitting right next to me, because it was the most conducive to that environment. Now, with someone sitting there, they will see the names of my other databases, which is a small nitpick, but I’d still prefer them not to see them (especially if I create databases like “FluffysBigParty” . . .)
One of the other views sort of worked, but there was no way to have it sort my groups alphabetically, but the contents of the group by date, which is a pretty common method of organization in the legal industry.
Evan, while I understand where you are coming from on the issue of client confidentiality, after opening the database you want to use, why not just turn off the Sidebar in Navigation.
My beefs with the 3 pane view are that columns should retain a line separator as in DT2 (rather than the slightly increased padding between columns now evident in beta 2) and the ability to reduce the size of thumbnails to aid in navigating a document.
I’m referring to the new view introduced in beta 2, where the database sidebar is also used to navigate groups.
The sidebar can be used to navigate groups. But you can still hide it, and navigate groups in the regular list view (this is my default).
So why have two similar navigation methods, side-by-side? I say ‘similar’ and not ‘identical’, because with navigating in the sidebar you can only get down as far as the lowest sub-group, and then the items are actually displayed in the second pane (which is what the missing third pane should be doing).