I use it like twice a year and can't say I ever had a thought about the new design vs the old one. When I want to do something I just crack it open and use the search bar. The amount people freak out about stuff like this online is completely unwarranted.
In fact it's one step faster because cmd + space > "settings" actually finds it whereas in the past I would do that, get no results, and then remember the correct name.
The problem is that their implementation of search can be very difficult to navigate, when it just happens to find some completely unrelated checkbox with similar name on a bunch if pages - it can be hard to figure out which is which.
In fact it's one step faster because cmd + space > "settings" actually finds it whereas in the past I would do that, get no results, and then remember the correct name.