To clarify the situation as I understand it.

1. Russian Wikipedia has ReferenceTooltips gadget enabled by default for all users, including anonymous users. We never had any significant problems with this gadget (and it had been enabled by default since 2012), one of its developers is active user on ru-wiki. We are fine with it and do not need a replacement.
2. Reference previews feature was requested by German Wikipedia community and since then was rolled out as beta feature on several wikis, including Russian Wikipedia, which didn't request it to be enabled.
3. Reference previews beta feature is enabled by default for new users on ru-wiki. This results in not one, but two popups appearing for new users, who are understandably confused by the situation.