You're right: in a sense, "everything you don't like is a bug". But it still seems important to distinguish "they broke the entire permission model, where I can no longer trust the sandbox boundaries" and "I'm locked out of crucial parts of my system" from "gosh, this is slower/more confusing than I might like".

I'm not sure the beta testers understood they were giving up that level of control by installing Dropbox's new software. The post's author certainly didn't.

True, Dropbox got away with grabbing permissions that apps shouldn't have, and then getting away with it. But it's still IMHO a bit more than a bug to take this attitude of "let's take whatever we can! It's Easier To Ask For Forgiveness..."