It just looks like an issue of focusing on one point while ignoring others. There was indeed an issue that it was (in the former version) hard to see when exactly some of the longer cooldowns completed. And this change does indeed make that more obvious, so it's a win on that specific point.

Unfortunately, at the same time, it hides the icon itself which is supposed to tell us what skill is assigned to that button. If it comes down to a choice of not being certain when a button is available or not even being able to see what the button does, then I for one would like to know what the button does. Muscle memory can get a lot of it on familiar jobs, but if muscle memory was enough throughout, then we wouldn't even have icon hotbars display on the screen. It seems SE forgot what their primary purpose is.