I guess there isn't much to be gained in discussing the pros and cons of the front-end, since we don't have that choice.

You make an excellent point about EDF, which I think is that the value is in the user-base/traffic and a modern front-end is not a necessary condition for this. Having said that I actually find EDF significantly more usable than here (some of this is down to what we are allowed to do here, some is what functionality is enabled here and some is down to differences in the front-end itself).