For most people, the changes were invisible. You'd have to talk to the sandbox designers as to why the changes were made, and it would be ludicrous to assume the reason was to make the game worse from their perspective. "I haven't heard an informed argument against mine" is incorrect because your perspective that longer cooldowns and momentum killers are worse is a subjective opinion, not an argument. Presumably, there could be players who also efficiently played the old cooldowns and movement and found them to be exploitative. You're going to have a bias if a nerf limits something you enjoyed, but it may have been done for a reason that you would find legitimate if you had it explained to you.
I'm not even disagreeing with you on the changes being necessary and better. Which designs are fun is highly subjective. Which designs are fair is also, but you can use data and statistics about skill distribution to lend objectivity to the process.
One of the things I notice right away about going back to Reach is that I can aim and normally return fire without being impacted by incoming fire. To me, that feels better. I've never liked flinch because I feel like it disempowers the player from fighting to the best of their ability. I can understand why you feel similar things about the patches. These things are argued about internally, but they are all in some way design decisions with subjective results.