For the record, I disagree with your statement.
I agree with all the points of the OP.
Do I want to use the new engineering system? No.
Do I have to use the new engineering system? Yes, even if it is just to get around more quickly.
Do I have to change gameplay behaviour to gather materials? Yes
I'm in endgame after more than 3 years, and I can see the day (and relatively soon) I will put this game down and not come back to it. I spent all my time in ED this past week simply gathering materials, using material traders and working on modifying my exploration Cutter for DWE2 (yes, I know it's months away). I emphasised working because it felt like a chore, it wasn't fun. That is my litmus test for a game. Is it fun?
The new engineering sucks the fun out of playing to create a new waste of my time, and I'm not the only one who thinks it.
Thats too bad, the new engineering has brought life back into the game for me. Theres only so much HGSS i could scour to gather my rolls and come back with nothing - then got shot up for not being competitive and the irony is I couldnt get competitive because of RNG failure. While I understand your sentiment, the mat gathering is significantly improved so I have to disagree with you there.
Pinning blueprints is also a godsend because it means that you dont have to fly to the engineer for your G5 fsd roll. The 1-4 mats come easy, and the G5 can be traded when needed as I have found. I still do a bit of searching for some stuff, but its much less - raw materials no seem to be a lot less of a problem than previous (or at least that has been my experience so far). Manufactured mats are the tricky ones, but its been a significant improvement over the old system by a long shot imo. Cut my engineering time down from months -> never completing to around 2-3 days to optimise drives/shield/weapons/distributor.
Grandfathered modules can be converted and start at top end G4/low G5. Had no issue there, it was like my modules only needed the G5 roll as per the old system. Even making new parts has been painless. Give it a try, I was pleasntly surprised.
In more or less every module I've had so far the new system has been an improvement on pretty much all of my old G5 rolls (which I thought were good until i saw the god rolls thread and then I gave up after months of work). Its nice to not have the constant neuroticism over material gathering to keep hammering at that shield generator or thrusters. I can now focus more on having fun than grinding.
Also after seeing what the new G5 dd thrusters can do and topped out shields I can now see why some are complaining because they cant lord it over the unlucky ones. Mindblowing difference in performance and there are still some modules out there which are better than the topped out G5 new engineer rolls.