I’m assuming 1172 is a count of donations to official mainstream servers. I have definitely contributed to my local server.

They only care about monetization. If they can achieve that easier with a new UI you know they’re going to do that. Old.reddit.com and the current www.reddit.com are both expendable if they can make more money without them. This is the new, publicly-traded corporation Reddit. Tradition be damned, they will make their money in whatever manner pays best.