Whilst the new behaviour was technically correct as it prevented the possibility of the chunk tick list actually increasing over time, it introduced a few issues, namely the fact that it slowed growth to unreasonable levels, and interfered with the values which server admins have finally tuned, and come to enjoy over the last few years.
If it is absolutely essential that growth be halted and ticking reduced as much as possible, the config option is there for power users.
If we wish to 'fix' this by default in the future, a new chunk ticking algorithm, which actually has meaningful config options should be designed.
By: md_5 <git@md-5.net>
Thinkofdeath
Zach Brown
Spigot