Given this side-by-side
http://cdn.androidpolice.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/not-...
I would choose the design on the right in a heartbeat. The only problem I have with the right-side phone is the busy/light wallpaper makes the icons and text a bit hard to read, but give that phone a black wallpaper like the one on the left has (and this is an easy user-tunable parameter) and problem solved.