If I wanted a bigger workspace switcher in Gnome 2 I had to increase the height of my bottom panel. Did not want to do that.
I disagree with the visibility thing. I think it is much more visible in GS than using the WS. Sure, I have to press <Super> if I forget where I put stuff, but at least the workspace preview I get then is much larger than ~15 pixels wide, so I can actually see something :)