My contribution to the thread has been to point out not that it’s better or enables anything new (at least yet) but that sometimes changes are going to affect SOMEONE regardless, good or bad.
I respect that for your use case this change to refresh functionality appears to be a major issue for you.
It’s interesting to me that you have been using the app for almost 7 years and this is the first actual complaint you have voiced on the forums (based on the fact you joined just a few days ago) and that’s a complaint that may cause you to fork the app. I understand it’s a major change for you, but you are just one user.
I know when we are considering changes to an app certain UX issues have to hit a threshold and affect X or X% of users in a negative way before we decide not to implement them.