I guess the new changes are meant to guard against some external actors, while internal actors will continue to have unencrypted access like this fiasco from a while ago.

http://gawker.com/5637234/gcreep-google-engineer-stalked-tee...

Google has long since implemented other measures to safeguard against internal bad actors.

I wouldn't give them too much credit on this. Gmail started in 2004, so a fix in 2010 still means that gmail had this vuln for most of its existence.

So if Larry Page wants to read my email, he cannot? I somehow doubt that.

He has greater disincentives than anyone else, and 3rd party hosts have the ability to read your email no matter where you host it.