OK, thanks. Seems like a step backwards to me, but I'll go with it.
No, it's a step forward. bitcoind now works like all other servers in that respect. If you're running, say, ftpd as an FTP server, you don't talk to the server by running
ftpd <command>, instead you use a separate client program. It really never made any sense in the first place for bitcoind to function as either a server or a client depending on the context.