It's the other way round for me. I knew my way around the old Blender haven't used it in a while though. Now I dread trying out the new version because it seems to have a completely changed and dumbed down interface.
It's not dumbed down at all. If you can get over the fact that a bunch of stuff has moved into icons and that a few keybindings have changed, it's still very much the same.
I think more than a few keybindings have changed. My muscle-memory is basically useless. I'm also not really sure about the whole icon thing - I doubt I'll be using them. Still, I'm quite happy to see the changes - despite using old blender enough that I have the muscle memory, I still had to look keyboard shortcuts up all the time, which is in my eyes a sign of bad design.
They broke about 99% of the keybindings, however you can use a 2.79 keybinding set. The new tools on the left are 100% useless to me, but I have been testing 2.8 for about a month or 2 now and have gotten used to it. Yes I still use RMB select. If you swap to LMB select the entire functionality of RMB select isn't copied over to LMB select, it a totally different thing. This is really annoying, but one of the few bad things about 2.8.
I was a bit worried about some of that missing functionality - just turned it back to RMB - and yeah, you're absolutely right. I thought stuff like alt-click not working was me just losing my mind. I wanted to learn the new stuff just because I don't want to end up bound to a bunch of input conventions that will end up depreciated - and I don't really care that much about LMB and RMB, or indeed any of the old blender UI, but I don't want to start using the tools on the left, since they are, as you say, useless. I'm more a 'select things, do an operation on them' kinda guy, so using a tool in edit mode (with a few exceptions) is kinda neither here nor there.
Maybe you use Blender differently than I do, but all modeling shortcut keys are still mostly the same and work the same way they used to. I don't use the left-side icons either (I'm not really used to that in a Blender workflow), but aside from using F3 to search for commands instead of space bar, I've been using the same modeling shortcuts from 2.79. Left click took about a week to get used to, but the only problem I've had with 2.8 so far is figuring out how the Eevee engine works.
Well, I noticed a whole bunch last time I started it up. Granted, I haven't had much time to use blender recently, but:
- The orientation controls
- poke faces (Alt-p) doesn't exist
- the selection behaviour (A doesn't seem to deselect any more)
- shift-G doesn't work
- W doesn't open a menu any more.
- Shift-tab doesn't change vertex/face/line selection mode any more.
Enough changed that I ended up clicking around the UI a lot. The orientation controls, and stuff starting with W were things I used to use a lot. I think when I get back into it, I'll spend a bit of time figuring it all out and learning the new conventions. I generally like the pie menu thing, and I like the move towards consistency (even if I think mnemonic keybindings are generally better), and Eevee is amazing for composing scenes (I used to hate trying to do lighting and having to wait for a half hour just to see the effect of moving a light a tiny bit).
It's in the Face menu, so either select the 'Face' menu dropdown from the viewport header menus, or press Ctrl-F, or press W (context menu) while you have some faces selected.
You can also just right click on the "Poke Faces" menu item, click "Assign Shortcut" and press Alt-P.
- the selection behaviour (A doesn't seem to deselect any more)
Alt-A clears the selection.
- shift-G doesn't work
Shift-G does grouped selections, I think this is the same as in 2.79.
- W doesn't open a menu any more.
The specials menu has gone, replaced by a context-sensitive menu (what a right click might pop up in most apps) So "Poke Faces" is here when faces are selected.
- Shift-tab doesn't change vertex/face/line selection mode any more.
Well, I feel a little embarrassed now - since you're right, my post was inaccurate. The problem with muscle memory is it's hard to put into text. All I was trying to say is, last time I used blender, I felt a bit like I had three less fingers. Obviously, the functionality is all still there. I even think that a lot of the stuff should change - it's just not the case that only a few of the keybindings changed. It seems to me that a lot of the most-used ones have changed.