I appreciate your preferences but, respectfully, your response kind of reinforces my take that the predominant issue people have with the new control scheme isn't that it somehow is worse than the old one, but because they just preferred it arbitrarily out of habit. To be clear, I'm not saying that's a bad thing, you're absolutely allowed to prefer it for any reason you want, but it isn't a fair argument against nor a valid criticism of the new control scheme either.
I'm going to try and keep the reply to the examples concise:
For the drive example, I was also showing the notably improved flow where I didn't have to press Alt+R to drop something, which was an incredibly tedious yet incredibly common action the game requires throughout it's play time. I could pick something up with R, hot-swap it in the inventory, use the next item in the queue, and then drop the initial item - with the same button. Like I said in my earlier comment, that's an improved, streamline control scheme, by definition.
Am I saying that the old one bad as a result? No, not necessarily, but it was more obtuse and harder for new players to learn.
I'm also going to say, I'm not really happy or unhappy with what you do like or don't like about the old/new systems. I'm not trying to be petty and score points against you or trying to prove that your preference for something is wrong. My entire argument is that the new control scheme is, in fact, objectively streamlined and simpler than before. That doesn't mean it's better, if only because that becomes an entirely subjective point.
Ironically, I don't miss the context menus. At all. I appreciate that they're still there to a capacity in 0.9, but I never use them unless I have to. Like in the case of the backpack and microwave, I wish it were gone and that I could Active and Use the item just by pressing/holding a button instead of having to scroll down every time. Same with the garbage collecting. You say it's incredibly convenient to just have to scroll down once, but it resets for a variety of reasons. I would know. I launched 0.8.2 and tested it. If your mouse hovers over a different item, like a stone, or a piece of trash, it'll reset and you'll need to scroll down again. Compare that to just pressing R. There's no resets, no accidental misinputs - I just press R for everything I need, and I don't need to worry about it.
As for the QTE argument, I... Just don't see it. I'm sorry.
You say that it's a choice between a "harder QTE" or wasting time when you, in an earlier paragraph, praised the old control scheme for having to scroll down a context menu for nearly every action. You objectively waste much more time doing that, especially if you overshoot the option you want, doing that than just... Pressing R for literally 0.5 seconds longer — or more, or less, depending on what you prefer. I'm not trying to be disrespectful when I say that's an argument born entirely out of preference for the older system. You're valid in preferring it, but I don't accept that as a critique of the new system.
Likewise, you're right. The collecting-heavy phase of the game, where you clean up the base and spruce it up, is very reliant on the controls being able to flow smoothly. And again. The new controls are better for that. You say that having to hold key presses are a drain on your sanity, but I flew through it even when I was still unfamiliar with it. The millions of context menus in 0.8, and earlier builds, and having to scroll for each one were a drain on my sanity, because the game never wanted to make doing something direct and easy.
If the issue you're having is that you don't like re-learning the controls — totally fair. But that's, again, an argument based on "I just prefer what I'm already used to" and not any sort of tangible feedback that could help improve the new controls or convince anyone to abandon it.
And, of course everything I listed was possible in the old control scheme. My argument was that it was easier now. Simpler.
Your response was literally:
"What exactly is more streamlined about trying to use a container, but accidentally grabbing it because I didn't wait quite long enough, and flinging it around as I move the mouse because I was expecting the menu to open up? And many more instances of use vs grab or hold vs collect shenanigans brought about by turning the controls into a QTE? Even boons such as precise placement are affected: are you yet to experience the frustration of placing a book on a hanging shelf, and accidentally.
Like I said at a later point in this thread, there were far better solutions and alternatives to Alt being annoying. Something I've yet to see anyone provide, is lived examples and experiences where the new controls actually made their workflow smoother in ways that only tap-vs-hold and the removal of most action menus could."
And I listed almost everything you did, and more, as well as provided my own example of how the new control scheme did, objectively, streamline the processes and were not as cumbersome as you made them out to be. I took issue with what you said because you used hyperbole and made it seem like the new controls were just so much worse in general, for anyone who used it. That simply isn't he case. It's the exact opposite in fact. The new controls add in more capabilities and improve the controls, no matter how you wish to define them.
To quickly add: You're valid in preferring the old system regardless, but calling my earlier responses dismissive, as if I just replied with "get good lol", instead of challenging arguments based off of subjective opinions is not fair nor productive. And I'm so far not convinced that I was wrong. But all the same, I apologize if I sounded or if I'm even coming across now as stand-off-ish. That's not my intent.