The changes made to the options form decrease usability for numerous standard tasks, ie. increased number of clicks (for single option searches) and removal of options (number of entries) as described in the discussion following its rollout on https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T50615. No evidence for users' demand was given and enhanced functionality is not proven. Given that Special:RecentChanges and Special:NewPages are mentioned in the task, which are important tools in the projects' maintenance and will likely be affected in the future, a reevaluation of the situation seems appropriate.
Possible solutions would be to revert to the old behaviour or a preference option that allows users to chose between the old and new form. A combined form where the option text is a hyper link would also work, but might be confusing on touch screen interfaces.