Why punish for having lots of npcs?
TBH, I think this is a great change for various reasons. They create more "safe spots" in the world, other than your central base. They basically introduced Pylons just to reward players who spread out the NPCs. I mean teleportation, something that you would need to wait for hardmode, then spend HOURS wiring up the entire thing. Just how many times have you went back and forth from your base to the jungle or the dungeon while looting? All of that is instantly solved if you place those Pylons correctly.
Also, you lose less NPCs this way if you happen to have a boss fight next to a town.
Why punish for fishing? it already is tedius.
If you're talking about the reaver shark, that thing was broken. That was a long overdue nerf. If you're talking about the crates, if you create a safe enough spot to fish, which is even more easier with the new NPC system you can just fish for those crates once you reach hardmode.
(I've never done this method to get the ores, so idk how much about how the crate changes affects this)
Why punish for wanting to build an afk farm? Do you have something aginst players wanting to play their way?
Let people play how they want if they want to skip so be it who you think you are?
That's the very reason why Journey Mode was introduced. To take away the grinding part of the game for those who play casually, or for those who don't like grinding. You can pretty much turn off every option and just use the research part if you feel like it's cheating. Besides, grinding was never mandatory. You can just use items from a different world if you want to. The main point is to have fun, at whatever pace you want.
It feels like you've been a bit misled about the update, especially with the video you linked. All those are nerfs for sure, but there's a whole lot of new mechanics added to make sure it was balanced and still enjoyable.
they gave you a blind bird to use with your summoner
This is mostly a personal opinion, but if yrimir could do a hardcore summon only run, I don't feel like the class is broken, especially with the introduction of whips.