One of the most significant problems with U-boot was the inability to charge the device while the U-boot screen was loaded. People who had problems loading a kernel, and for various reasons there were quiet a few (me included), ended up with a flat battery. This meant that they could not flash and unless they found an external method for charging, pretty much had a bricked device.

While I completely agree that stuff in Devel is there to try by the intrepid folk who want to learn the capabilities of their device and “Don’t fraid anything”, I think that the overclocking capability of the kernel has attracted far too many mainstream users that would struggle to recover from difficult situations like the one described above. I’d say Titan considered this and other factors before deciding to remove U-boot. V45 is still there for those who want to use it and know where to get it, and for those who don’t, and those that blindly install updates from devel; they now have a kernel that won’t cause them so many problems if they need to flash. I think it was good idea.

Personally, I’m sticking with V45 for the time being as I want to dick around with its multi-boot trickery, and I like Tux (the penguin). But I’ll also have a spare charged battery on hand for when I go too far and have to flash back.