Chat as yours, Shelley's and others' is all fine and good and interesting and informative. Just don't see it as going at all toward answering the questions which this issue is all about ..
Just noticed the Go by the post numbers is now blocked in blue. WHY? How is the excess script required to create that anything more than a waste of space.
How do the changes make the site better for the mobile user? Maybe they do. It would just be good to be told how. And why.
If there are good and valid reasons for the changes it should be easy to tell us why.
It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”