"This is a really really backwards step in usability". The previous way of operating things were much more intuitive and faster.
Before it was easy to get your fingers on the arrow keys after invoking Hook.
It is way slower to do the ctrl-T or click the title bar - the former requires one to look at the keyboard, the latter to take your fingers off the keyboard. Both are one action longer than the previous functionality, but perhaps worse - it takes one out of the flow.
I would second the suggestion made above that the new interface is optional.