I suppose people expressed the wrong thing. People were upset that overworld mobs were super easy AND gave crap exp. SE just made them harder (hit harder and more hp) but they don't give enhanced exp for your effort so it's just less worth it to bother.

Maybe some people were genuinely annoyed that running through the world was too safe, but simply making mobs live longer and possibly kill you (only if you stick around though) won't make people pay attention to them.