The Good: Having the FX bin automatically resize to accommodate the number of effects is a really cool idea.
The Bad: The contrast between enabled and disabled effects isn't great enough to be able to tell the difference easily.
The Ugly: Those clunky, chunky buttons are way less sexy than than the way effects used to appear in the effects bin.
 
I like the concept behind FX Stacks, but I hope Cakewalk will reevaluate the graphical choices they made, both in terms of ease of use and aesthetics.

I wondered if the buttons were to make selections easier for touch screen users.
 
I don't use a touch screen, personally, but that appears to be the way things are going.

benjaminfrog
 
The Bad: The contrast between enabled and disabled effects isn't great enough to be able to tell the difference easily.

This is my only niggle with the new FX Stack.
 
Here's how they currently look with my colour-coded Console Strips:
 

 
I think something like this would be a vast improvement, simply by using a 'negative' of the inactive effects:
 

 
The same 'negative' scheme, only with the default strip colours:
 

 
And taking this one stage further for those of us who really struggle with low-contrast grey-on-grey:
 

 
Or maybe even the ability to use custom colours; here we'd have 'green' for on, 'red' for off:
 

IMHO, just the thing the new Duckbar 2015 would cover.

.

YES.  This is a small, but meaningful detail.  I COULD NOT tell if my fx were on or off.
I love the "negative" suggestion.
+1 to you all.

Great idea, Steve!

Another +1 on the "negative" option or equivalent. The current setup is too dependent on the monitor's brightness and contrast settings.

Just submitted it on the Features & Ideas forum: http://forum.cakewalk.com/FX-Stacks-Improvement-m3153747.aspx

Looks alright to me but if changing it can help others why not.