> Basically it seems like the new developer just wanted to pad his resume, so he picked up a project that was otherwise abandoned and started re-designing and re-implementing things so he could brag about it. The changes don't really fix any problem that anyone had, and improvements are none since the new releases are mostly about removing features and re-writing code.

I rather be more generous and apply Hanlon’s Razor. The new dev probably does see it as an improvement because it follows some more popular UI trends.