The reddit redesign was far from pointless. It turned the site in to the perfect data extracting, ad showing, engagement boosting site. They redesign was a massive success for reddit the corporation.
They didn't have to do a complete redesign and make the site slow in order to add the features that increased engagement.
Both infiniscroll and automatically expanded images were possible with the old reddit by using a browser extension and the site still felt lightweight and kept the same look.
The site is significantly clumsier and more frustrating to use than it once was, thus you have to spend more time on it for the same amount of information, thus "engagement" is increased.
