Complaints have value. Whining has little value, but it's not very productive to apply that label to someone's thoughts. I generally don't agree with the sentiment of going backwards, but if someone has good ideas about why having certain lost mechanics benefits the game as a whole, that's pretty great feedback. People that are die-hard fans of something tend to have a lot of interesting insight into what would/has and wouldn't/hasn't work/worked; the kinds of things you only get the feel for after experiencing it from many different angles and many different perspectives, seeing it evolve and grow as time goes on.
I guess what I'm saying is: people that have put a significant amount of time into mastering a game tend to pick up interesting insight into not only the game at a face value, ie its mechanics and characteristics, but also into its very design and nature. That kind of thing is extremely valuable when considering design changes, or when considering if a design change actually benefited the game as a whole.