Thanks - I didn't notice that. After having mistakenly sent a few embarrassing half e-mails I've stopped using tab altogether in gmail for fear of doing it again. When I indent text it's spaces instead of tab - unlike anywhere else.
This proves the point that it's terrible UI though...
I highly recommend turning on the "Undo Send" extension in the Labs part of settings. It lets you choose to undo settings for ~5 seconds after you press send. It has saved my bacon countless times, not because I hit send accidentally, but because I realize I want to add one more thing or recipient to an email.
"I highly recommend turning on the 'Undo Irradiate' feature on the Therac-25. It lets you undo irradiation settings for a patient for ~5 seconds after you press irradiate. It has saved my patients countless times, not because the UI tricks me into irradiating patients with the wrong settings, but because I realize I want to add one more dose."
Yes, because sending an email by accident is just like irradiating a cancer patient to death.
Obviously, they've made it easy to send emails (pressing tab then enter) but that means that some folks send them by accident. But that's an acceptable trade, because it doesn't kill people.
For me, the now-hidden formatting options was the biggest annoyance. I use quote/indent/lists a lot. Now I am slowly getting used to the new UI because I have no choice. I have new compose enabled on the @gmail account, although old compose is still active in Google Apps account somehow.
Also, as @tomkarlo suggested, use undo_send, that is a life-saver. I set it to max possible- 30 seconds.
It's messy that they replaced these conventions but I understand that gmail is not targeted at the geek population exclusively anymore. Also, I like minimalistic user interfaces and geeks should be able to adapt. Here is a mapping for gmail:
Tab -> Ctrl + ]
Shift + Tab -> Ctrl + [
Quote -> Ctrl + Shift + 9
(They are also helpfully annotated in the formatting menu in case you forget.)
Not that I'd ever use them. On my AZERTY keyboard Ctrl + ] translates to Ctrl + Alt + shift + ). I always have to press shift to enter digits so I'm not sure how the last one is even supposed to work in theory.
I also don't seem to have a formatting menu. Are you sure you're not using a Google Labs feature?
This proves the point that it's terrible UI though...