They are now mandatory in responsive mode, despite the user settings. I don't quite know how I feel about this yet... I took the following screenshots.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B39jDgCtzVHuNkFqN01tUV92MGM/view?usp=drivesdk
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B39jDgCtzVHubV82MHliejh6NTA/view?usp=drivesdk
All of the pictures form a continuous collage. It's a little hard to pick out individual pics, and the image borders are also difficult to make out. It also doesn't play well with the additional borders my custom CSS puts in for my own uploads.
What do others think though...? Especially from those that use the mobile mode instead of the desktop mode like myself.