I agree with your points but at the same time their UI is now so easy to navigate that my not so tech savvy 70 year old dad can use Netflix without ever calling me and asking me any questions. So my guess is, Netflix is trying to be more like a preprogrammed TiVo with lots of content than trying to appeal to the super users that may want those features.
I find their new UI cramped and more difficult to navigate. It seems like they are trying to bury some features like user reviews, now relegated to a secondary tab called "Details" and squeezed into a scrolling view that only show two reviews on my big monitor.