How can I bring back the old menu style on Chrome 28 onwards, now that the --disable-new-menu-style switch has been removed?

Solution 1:

As of Chrome 28.0.1500.72 (Official Build 211400) the following switch activates a new style with much less vertical padding:

--force-fieldtrials="NewMenuStyle/Compact2/"

No idea whether that switch is there to stay but it does indicate Google is working on this.

Solution 2:

Google has made clear that they've made an arbitrary decision to do this and aren't interested in revisiting it. A Google flack named JackyH told us this and marked her own answer as "best" for the topic, even though readers have downvoted her answer 8 to 121.

So, sorry, but no solution is forthcoming from Google, although it wouldn't hurt to add your downvote to JackyH's answer and your complaint to the long list of them.