It's still there, it's just difficult to know when it will appear. Sometimes it takes one more tap than expected, or sometimes one must deselect a word and tap again, or change focus away and back again. Very sloppy UI.

Yeah, it is still there, and there is a pretty clear cut logic for when it will appear.

If you tap while a word is selected, it won’t appear. If you tap on the cursor while a word isn’t selected, it will appear.

If by "clear cut logic" you mean a consistent process, then sure. But if you mean intuitive, I must disagree.

Especially because it was working fine and understandable in older iOS versions.

Also for some reason autocorrect seems to have gotten a lot worse. It has become nearly impossible to type a grocery list without all kinds of annoying wrong corrections.

Yeah, good point. Your guess was right, I meant it in the sense of consistency, not in the sense of it being intuitive without knowing about it