Google Reader usability complaint

[rhu]

I love Google Reader. But I never use the set of controls in the upper left blue box. And on my new netbook, that box takes up about half the vertical space on the screen. I wish there were some setting that would make it go away, or at least a way to collapse it to a single line.

And I can't find a feedback link in Reader. Golly, I wish someone from Google read this blog and could forward my complaint to the appropriate people there.