This new behavior of the settings is not bugged in the way you all think it is. It’s the direct result of bug report VB-104287. Our old setup doesn’t make sense any more with the possibilities the toolbar editor introduced.
How it used to work:
The status info could only be displayed in the status bar
We had a three way settings switch between hiding the status bar, showing the status bar, or toggling the status info overlay depending on the state of the status bar.
Why the old way is faulty for the new setup:
There is no guarantee the status info element is in the status bar, it can be placed in any compatible toolbar. Let’s assume we place the status info element in the address bar. In case the address bar was hidden because we toggled it, or we opened mail, there was no way to show status info overlay because it depended solely on the visibility of the status bar, not the status info element itself!
How it works right now:
Whenever no status info element is visible in any toolbar, the status info overlay is activated automatically.
How it should work:
There should still be a way for people to both hide the status info element AND have the status info overlay disabled at the same time. This will likely require a settings change, which does not depend on a three way switch. A simple checkmark to turn the status info overlay off and on would probably be sufficient. Then the overlay would only show if both the setting is turned on and no status info element is visible in any part of the UI.