I agree. I think that the criticisms on legibility are extremely biased. In my experience, the real issues with Liquid Glass are in terms of decreased usable space, less discoverability of actions that were previously top-level, and most importantly (and rather objectively), battery life.
I started off thinking that the design was ugly (the reflections made it look kinda plastic) but came to like the fluidity after about a month. And I like the push away from custom fonts and colors, which software designers obsess way too much upon.
How is criticizing legibility of text-on-text "extremely biased"? This is basic UX.
I still remember Win7 Aero fondly and I really wanted to like Liquid Glass. I had to turn it off as soon as I saw what happened to the notification drawer.
Because I've been using it for months now and the text is perfectly legible. Some of the very early beta had too much transparency but they've drastically tightened it up and now it's not even noticeable. Safari was probably the most noticeable fix they applied—the URL/tab bar is near fully opaque now. They're way more aggressive on turning up the opacity on backgrounds with the same text color. The readability issues are being addressed and is a
fixable issue rather than a condemnation of the whole design system. I still think it's a gimmick but it's firmly in the visual preference territory instead of measurably worse.
decreased usable space is definitely my biggest gripe, especially on Tahoe.
I converted a 2019 5k iMac to work as an external display a few years ago, and the extra screen real estate was a massive QoL improvement. But with Tahoe, it feels like I'm back on a smaller res monitor with the window chrome taking up a lot more space (I live in Safari and it feels massively different on here, especially with the larger tab bar).
I started off thinking that the design was ugly (the reflections made it look kinda plastic) but came to like the fluidity after about a month. And I like the push away from custom fonts and colors, which software designers obsess way too much upon.