The main problem with the patch in my opinion is that they're trying to force you back to the way it was in the beginning. They reversed the evolution of the game. Most people's path in Diablo was:
1.) Playing game normally.
2.) Dueling.
3.) Magic-Finding.
4.) A combination of 2&3 to further improve your characters.

The patch basically flipped our "Diablo-Knowledge" inside-out. Most of the basics have been changed. The people playing will pretty much follow the same evolutionary path, the good thing is, we get to actually play somewhat intellectually with the more difficult monsters. Downside is, it's definitely not newbie friendly.

The patch is good in some ways, and bad in others. I'm still actually playing at this time, I'm willing to give it a bit more time to tell whether I will retire from D2 or not.