Thanks for highlighting this, Jeff. There has been very little visibility for this feature in general, and additional ideas for moving the project forward are valuable. The real reasons for reverting are somewhat ambiguous but tied more to the overall user experience as opposed to the four bullet points you list (which are all minor and easily fixable).

In terms of process I think the discussion on the ticket highlights the problems with inconsistencies in the development process. When decisions are seen as sudden or authoritative, contributors have the potential to be demotivated. And that's something we should work to avoid as a project, by being transparent when establishing processes and making decisions.

Part of the bigger picture here is that this feature has been on the roadmap for almost two years, but no one has been able to work on it previously. I finally sat down and made a concerted effort to put together something functional, and spent two months requesting feedback, testing, and iterating. I ran, recorded, and published (on make.wordpress.org/design) eight user tests, as well as publishing a record of the mobile flow for review. Even though these are written requirements for feature projects to be merged, this was the only feature to take these steps in 4.7. In all, I volunteered hundreds of hours to this project over the past four months. I followed written processes as much as possible and the feature was approved for merge (and merged), before the recent revert. Knowing that my personal availability (particularly during traditional work hours) will be limited after 4.7, I am unlikely to be able to push this feature forward significantly in the future, so hopefully newer contributors are interested in taking the lead here moving forward.