That was the final straw for me as well. Forcing you to log in to see old.reddit.com + forcing you into the app when viewing on mobile + the general toxicity just made it no longer worth it to use Reddit.

set the cookie "redesign_optout" to true

Yeah, the reason I stopped using Reddit was because almost every sub I liked to follow started to get political. Stuff like the announcement you mentioned in some cases, or "we are banning links to Twitter because we want to show our disapproval of Elon" in other cases. Meanwhile I'm over here trying to enjoy my hobbies and not get politics shoved in my face, so I quit.