For me the only downside is having to use a Microsoft account to play.
Otherwise I think the frequency of updates and continued support of the Java version have been pretty solid.
Some of the mechanics have changed but I often grow to like them when I stop viewing them in isolation. For example I thought it was annoying iron ore became drops, but when I found I could use fortune pick it all made sense!
There is a boolean in the server.proprieties files that, if i understand correctly, makes the server unable to verify your messages and disables chat reporting
Bedrock marketplace is fully optional though. If you run Bedrock on a PC or Android phone, you can literally install worlds, skins, addons and texturepacks from the internet. They actually have their own installation mechanism (once you have made a texture pack for example, rename it from packname.zip to packname.mcpack , then clicking it will launch Minecraft and install it)
The only place where you cannot do this is on console... Which you weren't able to do on the 4j version either.
Also, if someone on PC has a bedrock world open with custom sideloaded packs and add-ons, etc, and someone from console joins them, they work as normal for the person on console, which is pretty neat.
Many changes are fantastic but they add more and more stuff to a game whose inventory was built around having a fifth the number of regular items in your inventory. Shulker boxes are the coolest thing in the game...until they become necessary to manage the bloat, in which case they suck, because now it's just an inventory square that takes forever to use.
They need to double the size of the standard player inventory, at least.
Not necessarily double it, but add a row, two, or add bags that increase the inventory, maybe with a special type (ore bag, flower bag, etc.). Mods had it handled more than 10 years ago.
Yeah, this is so true. I always play with the datapacks from vanillatweaks that allow you to recombine certain block types back into their base type. Like wood stairs back into wood block. Makes it slightly more bare-able. Do you do anything to make it better? If you do, I need to know 😅