I was exaggerating about the bar in fairness (oh okay, I just didn't realise at first). The bar only appears if you are viewing a video as part of a playlist or as a related video to something else. Still bloody annoying though.
And how come you can only use the search field on the front page now? If I'm viewing a video, the site doesn't respond when I type something in and press enter. Come on YouTube, frigging sort it out.