It’s just change. People complain every time the UI changes on anything.

People will get used to it. Apple will refine some things over time.

It will be ok.

I usually agree (and enjoy reading angry threads years later), but wasting screen real estate and getting measurably worse in terms of accessibility is simply not a good design decision.

I guess you can bookmark this thread and set a reminder to revisit it in 5 years and see how it went.