I understand where the frustration comes from, but the premise that Waze has “changed for the worse” doesn’t really hold up when you look at the broader context, most recent changes in WME and actually know the possibilities and roles in WME and the community.
Over the last 8 years, Waze’s user base has grown significantly. More users also means many more people attempting to edit the map. In practice, a large portion of those edits—while well-intentioned—are simply wrong and can have the opposite effect in the app. Ruining the experience for daily commuters who might switch to other GPS services, thinking Waze is unstable.
A very common example: new or occasional editors add a restriction with “private” vehicle allowed, thinking they are turning a road into a private road. In reality, they are only forbidding routing for other vehicle types (taxi, motorcycle, etc.), while the road remains fully routable for normal cars. From the newbie-editor’s point of view it “looks correct”, but the routing effect is completely wrong. This kind of issue is exactly why tighter controls became necessary.
Map safety became not optional. In some countries there has also been outright map vandalism. From a commuter perspective, it is far better to have a slightly more controlled editing process than to open Waze and discover that your daily route is missing, misclassified, or broken because of accidental bad edits or intentional harmful edits.
From your description, it sounds like you may have been modeling roadworks using segment restrictions, rather than what Waze now explicitly defines as road closures, and that distinction is important:
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Restrictions are map edits. They require a map update (tile build) to go live and another one to be removed. This can easily delay reopenings by 24–48 hours, even when the road is already re-opened early.
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Restrictions are not visible in the app with the red-white closure marking, so drivers don’t clearly see that a road is closed.
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For these reasons, restrictions are no longer considered appropriate for temporary roadworks.
By contrast:
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Closures are real-time routing changes.
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They appear in the app with the red-white highlight, take effect quickly, and disappear immediately when the end time is reached or the closure is manually removed early or not—no map update required.
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This makes them the correct tool when works move or end earlier than planned.
It’s also worth noting that, until fairly recently, editing locked roads required forum unlock requests. Last year, Waze introduced Edit Suggestions directly in WME, which is a clear step toward making the process smoother and easier than before. That alone contradicts the idea that things are moving in the wrong direction.
Finally, if your goal is only to add closures, there has been for a few years now a new specific role that allows editors to place closures anywhere in a designated area, regardless of segment lock level, without needing unlock requests at all.
Editors who are more engaged with the community are generally aware of this. The limitations you describe are therefore more a matter of missing information by not asking or interracting enough with other community members - who are also on the road everyday like you 
So while the workflow is undeniably more structured than it was years ago, it exists to protect routing quality and commuter reliability at scale—and in several respects, it has actually become simpler and safer than before.