So, I took my concerns over to the gimp-user mailing list, where apparently this issue has been argued over a number of times.

According to the developer who designed and implemented this change, GIMP has a "vision" for what it wants to be and a "target audience" of intended users, and people like me who find the new interface to be awful "are probably not a targeted GIMP user."

The purpose of the new change was explained during the thread. Several alternative methods of accomplishing the same purpose without breaking any existing use cases were described. To every one of them, the developer responded that those methods either weren't in accord with the "vision" of the application or would interfere with unspecified functionality to be implemented later.

The developer in question is perfectly happy with the idea that by remaining true to its "vision," GIMP is going to drive away many users.

As for alternatives, krita (the RPM is "calligra-krita") and pinta, both of which are available in Fedora, were suggested for people who just aren't professional enough to grok the One True GIMP Way.

  jik