Well if your only complaint is the design of the page (which is a fair complaint, a poor design can def. be annoying), then the whole "stop trying to confuse me into using Google+ when I just want to use Places" of your original comment is sort of a red herring, isn't it? Aside from having the name "Google+ Local", it's essentially equivalent to having the Places page undergo a visual redesign which you dislike.
https://plus.google.com/107551444336725915386/about?gl=us...
It reminds me a lot of myspace, actually.
Okay, instead of whining about this, I'm going to look into a maps API client :)