Thanks for the reply. FWIW, I think having the pipelines at the top is the right default view, but it needs immediate visible access to the job hyperlink to be usable.
I suspect those looking to retain the insights UI page and those looking for a cross-project view of jobs are a similar group of people. Unfortunately for you, as they are the tech leads and managers they are also probably the people deciding whether to buy CircleCI or move to another provider.
On screen space and layout, here is what the new UI actually looks like in a typical project at standard (Ctrl-0) font size:
I hope that helps you understand the messy view that the new UI design results in and how a 2 line solution would actually use less space.