I am with you on every one of these points. The image selection process is terrible now, where before it was quick & simple. And in the past couple of updates, sending larger images and gifs was sporadic until now I always get an error. I was happy when they added message reactions, then puzzled when they just stopped at six, half of which are rarely useful.
I’ve been a paid user for years, but now I’m causally shopping for something else. If they’re giving up on their app, so am I.