I don't see the point of having one extra step if I wan't to update my status. I'd leave it as it is if I would like to encourage people to update regularly (that is the point of FB).
I am, however, looking forward to the "top content" feature as the right box (highlights) is useless for me (showing the same stuff I don't care about for days in a row)
Call me suspicious but I doubt these redesigns were done by Facebook, the author of the post is a 16 year old British guy and the screenshots look like they're taken from a 16 year old British guys profile rather than a designer working in Palo Alto...