Hm ok interesting. Personally I use both depending on what I'm doing, but I find the old one much faster to work with. From my perspective I like the fact its thin and vertical, instead of wide and horizontal. I also think nodes are overkill unless doing complex tasks or using multiple in/outputs. For me I much prefer layer systems over node systems, even though I use nodes for many different applications, its great for procedural thinking but sometimes I want to keep my thinking linear - reminds me of using photoshop vs nuke/natron.
Each to their own of course.