We all know Chrome very well, though. If you launched it for the first time it's very unclear what that button does- and given that the only thing it does do is open a tab, why remove the +?
I think in a couple of months there will be a "+1" button at the top bar of Chrome so you can click it to "like" any page.. And having a "+" button next to it would've been confusing.
Yes, good point - I can't think of any reason, let alone a good reason, to remove the '+'. Fortunately, when using the keyboard, Ctrl+T or Cmd+T tends to work the same cross-browser.
