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It seems to me that this might strike a very relevant and "on trend" balance between the needs of the average person, hip circles, and creative circles. Furthermore, the redesign makes Facebook's recentish redesign look very clunky and amateurish; this design is very very fresh. I think it's a fairly interesting development.
I think pushing hip will be tough whilst still under the myspace banner, Timberlake or not. Perhaps a complete rebrand would have helped. Trouble is, often big pictures and slick graphics isn't what the average person wants - they just want it to work, and work well - it's why everyone moved from MySpace to fb in the first place. It looks really pretty, though!
I'd argue with you about big pictures and slick graphics not being what the average person wants: I think there's been a big move towards having a sense of hipness to your online identity, e.g. instagram, tumblr, even twitter for a period, etc, and it seems like this might be an accessible route towards that for the average, unhip, user. Facebook has been uncool for quite a while now, basically. And G+ doesn't even deserve a mention in terms of hipness.