100% this i end up missing friends streams all the time due to this

Just chiming in, similar to what Andrew said. I follow a lot of streams. Some of them are very popular and some of them are very small. It is frustrating that I cannot see all of streams I am following that are currently broadcasting without pressing a button. The old UI just listed them all out and there was nothing wrong with it. Perhaps only show streams that are up and running with an option to hide offline streams? Like how they do it with friends lists for most games these days.

Yes I find this most annoying too.
The streams I watch most often, are the streams with not so many viewers. It is annoying that I have to press show more on the sidebar and in the followed tab, to see all my followed channels.
Unfollowing the popular streams that I only tune in occasionally can not be the solution here.
If you want to keep the compact view per default, add an option to show every channel.

This please. Let us modify it or something too, it makes me want to un follow large events or streamers because they are always there. Maybe have it so "notify when live" streams are shown there instead of followed streams? Or streams you are subscribed too?

To be honest I find the new design to be a little stupid. The fact that you have to click to load more followed streams is just a new inconvenience compared to the old design. And when you load more followed streams you cant see your friends any more. I don't want to be one of those who just hates change, but every time I've seen a change on twitch for like the past 6 months or so, they've been either an inconvenience compared to old design, or just a downgrade in visual design (imo). Don't just change for the sake of change.

on the left side there is no option to see any of the smaller streamers i follow and i can only see the top 5.