Customise Activities Related List

Customise Activities Related List

The recent additions of two new columns in the Activities Related List (as seen on Accounts & Contacts Tabs) mean we now have 9 columns.  This is leading to sever space problems with the 'subject' column often squashed into 3 or 4 lines...

The new columns are 'start datetime' and 'end datetime' - but what do these columns mean?  The length of the title alone means a lot of extra space.

If, like me, you use the Activities mostly for 'Tasks' these new columns are wasted and take up valuable screen real estate.

This wouldn't matter if Google Calendar integration was possible, but it is still not (4 years later).

The answer is to allow Activities Related List to be customisable, just like other related lists.

Can this be done?  If not - why not? and can we at least shorten the titles of these new extra columns?