My opinions on 1.9

Yes, I have played survival mode. When I started playing Minecraft, survival mode was the only mode in the game. I'd play it single player more often nowadays if it didn't lag like hell (EMC's wild is fine though).

Food used to heal players, and a successful wheat harvest was unlikely. Food was only limited in stacks, so you had to conserve on inventory space while also carrying enough food to keep you alive after being damaged by mobs. If you didn't have it, you were pretty much dead if you ran into a skeleton, zombie or creeper.

Nowadays, food is used to fill up your hunger bar. More of it means you have more food to keep that hunger bar full. The hunger bar is also pretty easy to fill up anyway, and it regenerates health until it gets past a certain point. Then your health depletes... and its super easy to fill it back up again.

I probably explained this really badly, but whatever. It's 9pm and I don't care because I'm hard.

yaaaaaaaaaa

I see what you're saying, but minecraft isn't a rage game where you're supposed to die over and over, so I don't think that making it easier to stay alive was making the game "too easy"

You never died over and over - survival was just much more difficult due to the slight scarcity of food and resources (coal and iron veins were hard to find, they were always small, and charcoal didn't exist). It brought a little bit of challenge to the table, while keeping the game fun and easy to learn.

Hmm 1.9 ?
I dislike the new changes for shields (which you can currently use swords to block with) and the 2 handed player coming into affect. I am boss with just one hand, why in the world should I need two ?
I personally have seen and spent a little time in 1.9, and there's a good bit I like about it, but too many changes in place of fighting. Nothing wrong if they added more items or entities to the game but I mean when you try to perfect something that is already so great, they're risking it more and more to make it better.
(Every time code gets changed that actually affects how actions are performed in-game it's just making unnecessary chaos, so my question is: What is so important that they have to change something that is easy to learn and master over time ?)

As mentioned earlier by Penguin, these changes will undoubtedly be adjusted to as we interact more - that's just personal experience. Guess I like how good I am with the way I can shoot, hit, and block almost so bad I scare myself.