I'll die on the "jar crafting should not be coming back, but give the player a canteen" hill. It'll be interesting to see how they handle the reintroduction to jars. On paper, I don't like it, but I'll obviously wait to see how it plays first.
The canteen idea seems like it would solve a lot of issues. No more surplus of empty jars, but the player can still collect water from various sources. You could even have different tiers of canteens, from primitive ones that hold 2-3 units all the way to something like a camelback that holds 10 units.