Their editor was absolutely amazing. I know a plenty of folk who blog on medium because they love the nontechnical editor and minimalism of platform.

Agreed, it's a great editor. The downside of the minimalism is that, when they change the design, it's not obvious when old features are just gone.

The "huge picture header" is a case in point. A few years ago Medium's default design was to have a large picture at the top, with a headline laid out in white text on top of the picture. That design is not possible anymore (I think they removed it because it wasn't mobile-friendly)... But if you took a break from Medium and came back, you'd just be left wondering how to do it.

I remember spending about 30 minutes googling for that option, until I found mention of its deprecation tucked away in a FAQ section at Medium.

I had the same issue. It's odd too, because it's still possible to do that in old posts i.e. they remain unchanged, but new posts are in the new format.

Private notes are also nice if you want an editor to do any cleanup after something has been posted.

Another innovation was popularizing the "2 minute read"- those estimates put the reader at the forefront - we value your time