My first inclination is to think this is a good thing. That it's a sign of a better customer experience. It's the cynic in me that worries this will be seen by some as an opportunity to increase RPU and screw up the site. (And the new UI supports that cynical take, at least somewhat.) I 'grew up' in the era of USENET, which had a couple benefits over the forums and then social media sites that sprang up to replace it…
Now if res can just be updated for the new site to further fix all the little niceties. The fast use switching inevitably drives me back to old mode soon enough.
In the mean time create a bunch of accounts to help their valuation right? I've got a dozen accounts and forgotten the password to at least as many.