Improve masking workflow

I understand that Adobe want’s to focus on ai, efficiency, and innovation, but this new premiere update’s masking tools are quite cumbersome. 

What is the thought behind improving efficiency with the new mask tool workflow? I may be missing something. I understand that adobe want’s us to embrace the object masking tool, but that type of object masking is not terribly common in my videos.

I do a lot of opacity masking where I overlay clips on top of other clips. My workflow used to be:

1. Create mask by selecting one of the premade shapes or pen tool in the opacity section of the desired clip.
2. Enable keyframing of the mask’s path 
3. Move timeline and move mask to create keyframe

New workflow to follow:

1. Create mask by finding tool in sequence toolbar, select shape or draw
2. Assign mask to opacity
3. Select the “frame” button on the frame/clip selector
4. Enable key framing the mask’s path
5. Move timeline and move mask to create keyframe.

This new workflow is far less efficient in my use. I’d like to have the option to either use this new workflow (because I don’t think it’s all bad and I can see the benefit in some aspects) or the previous method of having an effect-specific (in my case, opacity) mask tool that creates an automatically efficient masking experience. 

I would love to know if anyone else shares this opinion.