http://www.neatorama.com/2008/04/21/wordpress-25-admin-backend-category-shenanigans-and-how-to-fix-it/

If you’re not into scrolling nirvana, and would like to get the category back the way it was, Judy Becker of Persistent Illusion blog has the hack for you: she edited a few WP files so all you need is to swap these new ones with the original files and voilà! Good ol’ category on the sidebar.

http://www.persistentillusion.com/blogblog/archive/2008/04/16/1301/gitcher-wordpress-25-hack-here

I guess you need to post that information to India, ECA. Apparently, there weren't any North Americans clever enough - or who worked cheaply enough - to produce the Dvorak Uncensored version.

So, its not released here yet??

Weird.

Sheesh.  I upped one of my blog installations to 2.5 and got that new admin screen as a surprise...I'll probably download this and install it. Category on the sidebar indeed.  I'd also like the Widget admin fixed to the way it used to be...total PITA now, IMHO.

Could be.  I don't know how many improvements WP 2.5 has over the last version.  They claim the post editor is not as finicky, as it is based on a newer version of the TinyMCE script.  On the public side, it still looks exactly the same, and there are no doubt some security enhancements in place.  And my plugins still all worked.  The admin side has the most drastic of the changes...things are moved around a bit.

True dat.    I remember they standardized the two-level "tabbed" layout over earlier versions.  This one, they rearrange things quite a bit.  The older improvement just tweaked things and rearranged a few minor things. 

If you have server space, upload a fresh version of WP 2.5 and check it out, before deciding if it's worth upgrading to.   Fortunately I don't need the admin side all that much.  Posting/editing is still easy to find, but the other admin tasks will take some getting used to.  I was reactivating some of my Adsense links on the site, and having to toggle back and forth between my two sidebar columns in the Widget editor was bloody annoying at times.

Of course, this is just my own opinion...YMMV. 

I can't read his mind but perhaps hhopper is worried about DU having adequate 'change controls'. It seems when the blog disappears, we also disappear.