i had suspended my account since many months, but logged in again to the bandwagon a few weeks back upon consistent requests from friends (apparently, its one way to keep in contact with a select few nowadays in this FB-crazed world
). then i too encountered this annoying 'timeline' thing. but now am using an extension in chrome named 'timeline remove'. although timeline feature is still present for my account (since it can't be removed), but the extension has made it 'invisible' for me or others to see, and what i/they see is the plain & simple(??) old look.
and now, what i keep doing whenever i feel to, is, log in 'happily', see what all funny & other pictures the world has posted, save those images to my HDD, and then log off (in between, PMing a few contacts)! this is one fruitful use i can currently understand of this book. poor me. though i second batman here from my heart when it comes to FB's features:
*i.imgur.com/cJaLFl.jpg