I notice today if you're on the YouTube home page and hover over a video it pops out a little and start playing instead of a repeated preview. It only does that on the home page though. If you open a video and hover over any of the video suggestions on the right it still works the same as it always did.
Tinker time again at YouTube no doubt. Use to be it worked to perfection for me on this end and then they got to shall we say, making adjustments?