Hi Rob. Thanks for some response.

I believe the decision was made with the intention of preventing users (especially new users) from accidentally distorting their images
I never saw any indication of this in the release notes. In fact I believe all current users and any new ones see this strange behavior as a bug. If I create a vector shape it appears with 8 resizing handles as previously it did with images. Selecting the top/bottom/left/right centre handles allowed for resizing in that plane. Holding down shift whilst doing so increased/decreased the resizing equally in that plane.

Why does the decision to change this make it easier for new users? You're suggestions work but it's far from intuitive.

Was this introduced to fit in with the new auto-resizing feature? If so, in my opinion, you've broken the program to fit a feature that not many people will use. Bring in the new feature by all means but don't break the remainder of the program in the process