Created attachment 208375 [details]
screenshot of patch to disable auto-expand on message tray

I'm not sure of the reasoning behind the current auto-expanding animation to show titles in the message tray:

Expand the target area once you've already moved your mouse there... simply to display some title information?  If you overshoot the original target, you must now retrace all the way back through the title to go back.  Or maybe you needed to see the title to see if it was the notification you were looking for.  For me, it feels like chasing a moving target and is a little frustrating.

There is a patch available on bug #661077 that provides a much more sensible behaviour.

Attached a screenshot of the effects of the patch.