I can see why veteran players would be upset with the changes. They cut to the heart of how the game world was set up. From what little I knew of the previous world, I like the new one. Things seem cleaner and more streamlined. It works.

Shadowrun is going to a new edition (4th!), and we're lucky. They're making drastic changes to the rules, but the world isn't changing very much. The world history is advancing by five years, but they're not changing any back-history. Actually, some of the rules and character archetypes are changing, but that's related to the advance of technology.