Feedback from Eirik Alfstad Johansen in http://share.ez.no/forums/discussions/the-future-ez-publish-platform-backend-ui-is-here/comment84263

The grouping of content navigation actions in the left column and content manipulation actions in the right, makes a lot of sense. However, I would argue that the minimize actions for both columns is something different alltogether, and should be treated as such, and not as the first (and by association, most important) action for each column. To me it would make more sense for these actions to be toned down both in size and color, and have a slightly different placement (for instance in the upper, outer corner of each column).