I just tried it out for the first time in a few years, solely for this comment im writing now. And I have to admit it has improved and adopted a lot of features that the third party apps have had forever (e.g. tap to hold to close threads, amoled theme). And i think thats kind of part of the problem. These apps basically defined how reddit should work on mobile, before reddit even had a mobile app. Reddit then copycats these features and now is trying to kill off these apps that paved the way. Theres a reason the third party apps are popular, people like them more than the official app.