Why do features disappear?!?!?!?!?!?!?

[Andy Lewis <ajl ascii27 net>]

I have been a Gnome user for quite a while, and in general like it, but
I have on multiple occasions been frustrated by "upgrades" that
suddenly  remove key functionality. For example, support for viewing man
pages in the Help system was a wonderful feature that somewhere got
dropped in an "upgrade" several versions back and has never re-appeared.
Now, a new menu system is introduced, and while I applaud the effort to
support the standard, there is no tool for editing the menus. Once again
an "upgrade" that remove functionality.

Is anybody actually paying attention to this? All the nice new features
are only so cool if every time once gets added something else that WORK
gets dropped. I have been a software developer for 20 years, and I admit
to being completely and utterly baffled by this approach to releases. Is
there any kind of development principal in place about not stripping out
really useful features during development? Is there any explanation? Or
is it simply usefulness becoming a lower priority than architecture
changes or standards compliance? How many users do you lose each time
something incomprehensible like this occurs - and with NO EXPLANATION AT
ALL IN THE RELEASE NOTES. Take a look at the lists, one after another,
distro after distro, with frustrated users over the missing menu editor.
I just don't get it....