Personally, I don’t mind settings being in the bottom bar. But at the same time, I think what you have in mind would be fine too. I do like the idea of bookmarks in the bottom bar, as honestly, this wasn’t something I was aware existed until I read your post and found bookmarks in the profile menu. Of course, it seems obvious now with the common bookmark button next to the upvote/downvote… I noticed I had some items bookmarked, likely accidental presses as a result the button’s proximity to the up/downvote.

I came from eternity, which had that the profile and settings in the left bar, which I also thought was fine.

The one thing I do find inconsistent with the UI is how the app treats Subscribed, All, and Local versus individual communities. Clicking on Subscribed, All, or Local gives you the default UI with the navigation bar at the bottom, and then you can swipe to quickly go to another. However, clicking on a community in the left bar does not give you the bottom navigation bar and while you can click on another community to go to it, you cannot click on Subscribed, Local, or All to go to those aggregate feeds. You instead have to click the back button in the upper left on each individual community you navigated to.

As someone that grades undergraduates, I’m happy that they not use the letter “x” to imply multiplication.