I thought it was pain to check time on V1.0 as it always had to be looked up seaparately, as battery level, network quality and time were mostlly hidden.

As for accessing those shortcuts, the shortest route is swipe left, up, click, swipe right and tap app cover. However, it's also a question of which features should be available the most - I rarely need that shortcut-menu for anything else than toggling the bluetooth as other functions are almost never needed (maybe except Internet sharing, which is also rarely used). However, access to grid is quite often used and it's more easily available in v2.0, so like everything with UI design, it's a trade off. Get one, lose one.

IMO the shortcut-menu should also be available from app cover-screen, so you don't always have to go to events to access it. Another thing to ease things (and reduce the need for shortcut menu altogether) would be to extend the ambience-functionality to include more settings than just background image, colors and sounds. Then you could create your most use cases into ambiences that can be changed almost instantly from just about everywhere. It would add functionality without sacrificing consistency. A win-win IMO.

edit: it has already been suggested in TMO: https://together.jolla.com/question/...-for-ambience/