The thing I think the 'research' missed is that is was the concept of importing that is what confuses newbie LR users, not the import dialogue itself.
Not necessarily. Speaking as the author of a program that imports photos & videos to the computer, my experience of supporting photographers of varying levels of experience leads me to realize that what seems obvious to you and me might be bewildering or even totally unknown to others.
Personally I have a lot of empathy for the Lightroom team in this instance, because there clearly was a problem for new users with the original import process that needed to be fixed. The status quo was untenable. Hopefully they'll get their revisions right in the fullness of time, satisfying as many people as possible.
Meanwhile power users might like to investigate using photo & video importing tools that run independently of LR, leaving LR with only the final step and most basic step of importing the files into the catalogue.