I just gave the Blender 2.8 Alpha a try and what they did to the user interface actually blows me away. 
They went from totally quirky to a really fresh, modern and usable interface. I applaud their braveness of changing the face of their product this radically; I guess long term Blender users will hate it for that, but for anyone else there are major improvements everywhere. – I was actually able to open Blender and intuitively navigate all of the functions. It definetely looks as if BforArtists was one of the inspirations, they even chose to match the color.^^
On the drop down menues: I actually like them, because they structure all the comands in a very intuitive way, without cluttering up the screen space. The only thing that should be changed is that the roll outs open automatically on mouse hover without the need to click them to speed up the new workflow. – And of course I am used to much more icons, so those I miss, but overall they did a phenomenal job on the new release. – Let´s see what can be improved in the details once it is officially released. 