Oh, and I didn't post this to bash the sincere concern about discoverable options. They could disable JS, and they still can, using an extension or going through a menu which clearly states that those configurations may break the 99% of the web.

Every change is prone to break someone's workflow. But if there is a good enough alternative and if the change is better for everyone, I think that should be left alone. If there was no way to disable JS after this update, I'd be pretty mad as well. But having an option deep enough to keep away from unsuspecting eyes is only sane.