You could have a point if the "developers" were the only ones testing the game... but
What about Roland? (he's not a dev, and he's an expert player)
What about the QA guys?
What about sunrise? What about rain? What about all the things that you said we were to gain?
You brought up faatal (a developer) and Roland (a person with access to the design so is going to play with an unconscious bias), not me.
Besides, I'm only arguing that removing bottles is weird and does nothing for water survival. Roland said pots are required to purify water, which means you will still find murky water, so unless there's something they still haven't told us, we will still be swimming in water. Pun intended.
...also, did you note that faatal said he was just thirsty for 3 days? Big whoop. Not exactly game changing. Early game is supposed to be hard.
If water ends up being challenging, like, for real, players will adapt and just focus on looting sinks (or whatever has it in a21) to get the pot. They'll still have it on day 1.
Find a town, break through the wall of the kitchen, loot sink, repeat. Since there isn't a zombie threat outside, and since sleepers although cool aren't exactly hard to avoid, you'll get your pot.
Sure, I could make it harder on myself by "role playing" and following the lights in the stupid dungeon design (what was once a great feature is now overused), but then again I could poke my eye out with a stick too. But why would I.
Besides. If water suddenly becomes hard to acquire, the casuals will complain and they will make it easy again.
But that's all moot. The removal of the returning jar is weird.