Agreed. Calling this a poorly conceived change would be an understatement IMO. My Brave utilization experience has been significantly degraded as a result of this change, as I’ve lost one touch access to 1/2 the sites I regularly visit (and bookmarks are not convenient to use).
When introducing major interface changes like this, the first step should probably be an opt in when possible. At a minimum, more control should be given to allow people to at least revert back to an experience closer to what they’ve come to expect (e.g. 8 top sites), if not a full fallback to the prior state.
Related complaints:
https://www.reddit.com/r/brave_browser/comments/jxa6wt/new_homepage_widgets_on_android/