Ha, at least you've got little fingers. Luckily I don't do laps but I'm sure there are lots of other functions that these changes will effect requiring a bit of relearning for some.
My guess is that the watch face was getting a bit crowded with the swipe up for Control Centre movement which did used to annoy me a little. Typically I have Timer bottom left, Water Tracker bottom right and regularly use Control Centre for Focus, find my iPhone alarm and Swimming settings. The problem was swiping up regularly opened one of the two bottom complications, maybe because my fingers are too big. This then meant pressing the Crown to go back to try again.
Now with Control Centre on the side button this no longer happens. Now the swipe up is for Notifications which I rarely use on the watch.
So, I guess the changes will suit some and not others depending on how you use the watch.