This isn't a single, monolithic change, there's plenty of changes between manifest V2 and V3. GP said he thought most of these changes are a step in the right direction, while expressing concern about one of the others. That seems like a cohesive and nuanced opinion to me.
It sounds like deflection and rationalization to me.
Not all features are equally important, the one seeing a regression is much more important, it's also the feature with a conflict of interest, and the conflict of interest lies in the direction of Google pushing this through over everyone else's objections.
I was in the process of writing a reply when I realised you presented the same arguments in a much more concise manner. For the record, this is what my problem was with the argumentation presented.
