Agreed. Google keeps ruining maps with needless UI changes. I still occasionally drop down to Classic because some feature I use is hard to find or hasn't been ported yet.
When I went to get directions a few weeks back and they told me that
a) I couldn't use Classic anymore, and
b) the new UI only had a drop-down for arrival time with half-hour increments, instead of letting me type a precise time (trains often arrive a couple minutes after the hour), and
c) they removed the option for getting public transit directions at all (that had been there and working in Classic for years),
I said three strikes and you're out and switched to Yahoo.
I was looking for the short url last week. It used to be near the top-right under something like "URL." Now, it's in the bottom-right, under the gear, then "share or embed map."
I was looking for satellite view for awhile, until I realized they renamed it to "Earth."
I just assumed they no longer offered a printable page with directions. When messing around for this comment I found it under "Details" after you look up driving directions.
The new street view hides the map in bottom corner, it now is a small thumbnail travesty with no way to to make it larger. And the thumbnail map cannot be made into satellite/earth view.