After using Inkscape 0.46pre1 for quite a while, I've been impressed by the new features and great improvements. However, I find the User Interface too big. For example, the new docked "dialogs" (which I will be referring to as side panes in this bug report) are a nice deviation from the usual UNIX "Million Windows" way, but I find them too big. Mainly because their functionality is irreplaceable, but having them too big is actually removing their functionality and substituting it with a lot of screen space and clutter - like a new version of the UNIX "Million Windows" way. Here are some examples of what I would do to conserve their functionality and make them smaller.
One of the biggest side panes is the Fill and Stroke side pane. When the "Wheel" tab is activated, there is approx. 132 pixels between the farthest point of it (to the right) and the end of the most inner GTK+ Frame. This is due to the absolute hugeness of the Alpha bar. I think it shouldn't be as long. Even a minor 20px off it would make a much better experience. Considering the other tabs like "RGB", "HSL", "CMYK" and so fourth, I think their bars should also be a bit shorter than the current space used. I would also like to recommend the usage of smaller font sizes in these side panes, as it would gradually lower the actual width of the side pane. Maybe font size like 8 for 96dpi would be good enough, or something smaller/bigger. Another thing which I personally think should be considered is smaller icon sizes for the side panes. The current ones are around 24px, but that is considered to be huge in screen size for something like a side pane. I would recommend 22x22px, even though I like the sizes used by the GIMP. They might be around 16px, and they're still usable.
The "Allign and Distribute" dialog would sure use smaller icon sizes and font.
I would also like to recommend using 22x22px sized icons all over the UI of Inkscape.
I would be happy to help as much as I can if this task gets approved.
Sincerely,
Stojan Dimitrovski
+1, now it's time to remakr interface. Inkscape (at least 0.45) is a real screen space hog.