Even with per ray scaling you still needed to land all pellets to do full damage, and for say the JG, you needed to land only 1 less pellet (out of two shots) to min stk.
If you check the math it wasn't nearly as big a change as you say, and your example of "3 of 8 pellets do full damage" is just laughable.
The community, as a whole, has wanted weapon balance for years. Some iterations work and other's won't, but to say no one asked for this is dishonest.