the fact that it allows more screen space for content is appreciated, but the way it was forced on everyone pisses me off.

You can change it in settings -> Apps -> Safari, under the "Tabs" section - "Bottom" is like what it used to be. I immediately switched to that after the update to 26, but once I realized you could swipe up from the address bar to get to the tab view, I switched back so I could get more content space.

I don't like that it's two taps to get to the share button now though.