It looks like they have changed - I should have considered that.

Here's the post that's posted to a profile rather than a subreddit.

I don't think it's really debatable whether they're moving towards a user-following direction or not - simply because they've built it out and deployed it in the new profiles.

I do agree that this isn't an issue. I use Reddit daily and I haven't found any of these features to be an issue, and I think the people that are freaking out about them are being unnecessarily dramatic.