User blog comment:Susanolivia/Beta Wrap-up/@comment-3165670-20101005223029/@comment-785068-20101006141721

''We agree that the width of the sidebar makes the content space smaller than it used to be on most browsers. Over time, you may find that you want to look at how thumbnails, tables, galleries and infoboxes fit into the new article space on your wiki. The upside of this design is that you can design pages that always look the way you expect.'' ~last post

That's basically their answer to that so far. I'm hoping they have a change of heart down the line and think a bit more about extending article space. Until then, that's all they've basically said about touching that particular aspect.