\du quite ugly in 8.4

Could someone clarify why this (from PG 8.4)

# \du
List of roles
Role name | Attributes | Member of
---------------+-------------+------------
admin | Create role | {}
: Create DB
postgres | Superuser | {}
: Create role
: Create DB
someotheruser | | {}
someuser | | {}

is an improvement over this (from PG 8.3)

# \du
List of roles
Role name | Superuser | Create role | Create DB | Connections |
---------------+-----------+-------------+-----------+-------------+------------
admin | no | yes | yes | no limit | {}
postgres | yes | yes | yes | no limit | {}
someotheruser | no | no | no | no limit | {}
someuser | no | no | no | no limit | {}
(4 rows)

The way I see it, a perfectly clear, complete, and legible table has
been turned into a denormalized, unreadable, and ugly pile of ASCII
salad that moreover wastes valuable vertical screen space instead of
using the abundant horizontal screen space.