Does it still save bak files everywhere though? I used it for a while and it littered folders everywhere with them as it doesn't clean them up. I tried turning it off but an update came through that changed something and turned it back on, and then I came across nano which felt nicer :)
I actually like those ~ files everywhere, because it makes for an easy and (almost) universal undo. But it does make a mess, and I understand why you might not want them. I would be surprised if you can't turn them off, though... and I'm even more surprised they came back after an update, I wonder if you set it in the system config and not a personal config, so it got overwritten when you updated; but possibly the config value changed names too. :(
That's very frustrating, and I hope nano treats you well.