Seems like a well intentioned feature but badly conceived implementation – a case of just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
How many users actually _need_ this and if anyone does need it then I’m sure they’d be happy to just have to tick a box to make it happen and also have that throw up big Warning about the implications as regards the future transportability of your site. Surely preferable to _forcing_ this onto the general WordPress user population whether they want it or not.
We know from the chatter above that this “conversion” can be done at _any_ time so there is absolutely no need to make it a “stealth” one-way upgrade is there?
I haven’t seen any good justification for why this has been forced upon the general WordPress user population and in fact I’ve seen some pretty wacky comments from a “Tech nerd what works on WordPress.oeg” (sic) about what users should and shouldn’t be doing as regards how they manage their site developments and workflows that would kinda suggest a certain lack of connectedness with real-world usage and may well be indicative of how this got slipped in without there being any true consideration of the potential impact.
So please WordPress devs, you are great guys and gals and WordPress is a great application but please consider your users and their real-world needs and seriously consider turning this into an _optional_ action selected through a tick-box for those that _need_ it (or want it just for the sake of it) and also provide a “back out” for those whose sites have already been affected through no fault of their own. It’s not too late to make this right.
Thanks.