You are missing the point. You join a server, and are trying to help a noob. He asks you how to craft a hoe and you would have to explain the deep process of gathering clay, stones, kill some animals and get some leather, but make sure to use a bone knife to maximize harvest, search a sink for short metal pipes, and then boil some bones and murky water in a campfire to make duct tape. Then you need to find a forge schematic or buy the first rank of engineering. Next you craft a forge and load it with iron (where do I get iron) and clay. Now that you have a hoe you need to gather fertilizer and right click the earth to make it fertile, then you need to plant a seed
Or you can just craft a farm plot and place it, then plant seeds.
A new player would be overwhelmed with how to start a farm and would have interupted you asking many questions like how do I find iron and clay, where do I get the stuff for fertilizer, etc.
At least now you can look it up in the crafting menu and its clearly right there how to do it. The old system was part urban legend and required looking up on the internet exactly how to do it.
I am sorry you were attached to the old method, but anyone can see the new system offers less confusion, smoother harvest because its nice and flat surface, and less uneeded complicated mechanics. Since when is simple the bad guy? Complex stuff is the bad guy.
We want more players to enjoy the game, not have to tab out to figure out complicated systems. If you never played minecraft nobody would figure it out without a wiki. Now its pretty straight forward. Nothing is worse than struggling to learn a game. We're streamlining systems as we go gold only old players will complain, new ones will just enjoy it because they get it right away.