This same sentiment was echoed just as strongly after the last major redesign (when they went from straight text to adding thumbnails and more whitespace).

The majority hated it, rebelled against it, said that the change in the way content consumption was focused on images more than text would push out quality content in favor of image macros that can be voted on quickly, that the quality of the people using the site would drop, etc, etc.

10 years later, I still feel all of those concerns were valid and correct, however these changes did not hurt reddit, and in fact the company grew by leaps and bounds.

And even now, I still share the same sentiment as you and others, but I think whether or not these changes are actually detrimental to reddit as an entity are yet to be determined.