Changes to functions of some Illustrator tools?

Hi, all. Either I missed the announcement or my particular install of Illustrator 25.0.1 is acting up in a way that trashing the prefs doesn't fix: the input-required tools (for lack of a better term), such as the Reflect tool and the black-arrow Selection tool are not behaving as expected. There may be others, as well, such as the Scale, Rectangle and Blend tools. All require some user input after selecting the drawn element to be affected, either choosing an orientation, a direction, and/or whether to copy the element. As I recall, in the past, the user-input fields that dropped down upon selecting the tool would reset to zero after use. Not any more. The last chosen degree, or quantity, or angle, stays in the field(s) and if the user chooses the tool again, the fields are already filled and automatically the new work area is changed according to those OLD choices, whether that's what I want or not. I have a reason for thinking this ia an engineered change in the tools' functions-but am I correct? Or is this just an Illustrator cockup that will go away if I trash enough prefs? Or is it, instead, something I overlooked in the preferences interface?