I used it a couple of ways. When it was one of the first things to see when logging in, I could tell if there had been a sudden change in anything - new hash added to the site, a worker offline that I didn't know about, etc.  I don't pool hop and since it was usually consistent or would only vary slightly, having it was used as a trigger that something changed.

The second way I used it was to estimate how long to hit a certain goal. yes, I could use a mining calculator for that. This made it easier since I knew how many blocks would need to be solved in order to earn a certain amount specifically at Bitminer.  Most mining calculators base earnings off hash rate estimates over time, not earnings per block.  This was a nice way of looking at it from a different perspective. Plus, I didn't have to go to a different website to check a calculator!

Maybe you can enable it as a preference with it off by default. Those that were confused by it, would never know. Those that liked it could have it back.

A note on the longer shifts - it was nice for those of us who had been around for some time because when someone brought a bunch of hash suddenly and you got a nice string of blocks solved, your older work suddenly was more lucky.  Newer work suffered, but then with people adding then dropping hash, slower miners got a boost, while the hoppers were discouraged.  If no blocks were solved in a 13 hour shift, then 3 in the second 13 hours, you'd see a huge impact on earnings and your per block earnings would be very high. Now, in 13 hours, that's 4 shifts gone by and the higher hash rate would drop your earnings per block solved significantly.

The opposite would then happen. When those people left, your earnings per block would be down as they continued to get paid for previous shifts. The difference was that when those people left, there would be three or four days between blocks being solved and their work would mostly be gone with your earnings per block back to where they were before anything happened. Bad for high hash rate hoppers, good for everyone else.

I do see the logic in shorter shifts though in the fact that it seems to be attracting an overall higher hash rate to make earnings more consistent. I didn't mind the inconsistency though since you could have some killer days and then other days that would kill you!