They are not simply removing middle-click paste function, but replacing it with something presumably more useful. What I learned from my own experience with GN

They are not simply removing middle-click paste function, but replacing it with something presumably more useful. What I learned from my own experience with GNOME 3 (I really like it) and from observing other people's reactions, is that we tend to overestimate the importance of our old habits and are willing to put more effort to protect them than it would take to change them (e.g. spending all day figuring out how to customize the UI while it would take an hour to get used to the defaults).