We’ve all had freak out moments that inspired knee jerk reactions – everyone has – and in this economy it’s understandable.  But when a powerhouse like Facebook does it – that we don’t understand.

We’re hoping Facebook’s latest knee jerk reaction is one that will be fixed before it is too late.

We were thinking about drafting an open letter to Facebook explaining our huge disappointment, but it looks like The Huffington Post’s Chris Willman has already done that.

Chris Willman: Facebook’s Lousy Facelift

How "Twitteriffic" is the new Facebook redesign? Imagine that Apple panicked over the press the Google G1 phone was getting last fall and abruptly decided to remake the iPhone in the image of its upstart competitor–dropping the most desirable features and adopting the G1’s bigger bulk, smaller screen, skimpy memory, lack of apps, and mediocre interface. We all know that could never happen: Apple has too much confidence in its own market dominance and design brilliance to blink like that. Yet, incredibly, Facebook–until last week, the Apple of social-networking services–decided to react to the Twitter "threat" by trying to turn itself into its relatively puny challenger. It’s like Meryl Streep getting plastic surgery in order to more closely resemble Malin Akerman. Who’d have guessed that Facebook, of all the beloved services, could be capable of such a needlessly lousy facelift?

Mr. Willman, this is what we miss the most too (it also jacks up our Facebook Accountability Venture ):

Also missing is the ability to look at your friends’ status updates as a distinct list, without having links or wall posts or other data mixed in. The scroll of status updates was always my first Facebook go-to. Yes, they’re very similar to Twitter’s tweets, but there was something about Facebook’s elegant typography and layout that encouraged users to intermittently indulge in philosophical haiku or droll bon mots–as opposed to the constant barrage of overinformational "About to scratch myself" posts that Twitter seems to encourage.