How could Xero improve the homepage?

Please inform your UI designer that this is a very poor downgrade. As a database systems developer of 35 years experience I can honestly say that unfortunately the new layout is a retrograde step.

1 It removes the organisational functionality
2 It removes the visual oversight of account balances
3 The widgets are way too big making the screen very long
4 The transition to the new format involves a lot of re-organisation

1 - It reduces the ability to organise the widgets (left / right column) and makes it very difficult to organise. My business maintains multiple bank accounts, credit cards and payment platforms (26) which I organise in the left column and many income sources and selling platforms (17) which I organise in the right column. The new homepage does not allow this and simply puts everything sequentially. Taking away a feature like this is a retrograde step.

2 - Removing the chart from the widget means a quick visual overview of the state of accounts is removed meaning every account balance must be numerically checked, taking much longer and this also loses the historic comparison ability.

3 - On the new homepage means that the widgets are bigger meaning it takes much longer to review all accounts. I currently PGDN down 12 times to reach the bottom of our accounts, the new design means I PGDN 15 times. Spreading out information and adding more white space is not a good thing. Where are the other account widget configurations, like a compact version?

4 - Re-organising the new page will be very time consuming as moving accounts around as they become more or less important, and therefore moved higher or lower on the page, is very time consuming. Surely the widgets can be reduced to single line entries when editing the dashboard rather than scrolling up and down to move a new account from the bottom of the screen all the way to the top (which then shifts all other accounts so left/right column organisation is not an option).

Sorry Xero, this is a bad update! My career would never have lasted as long as it did if I had enforced this kind of UI downgrade on the many thousands of users of my developments. Do you have a pre-development consultation with actual users as to what they need, or do you just employ IT consultants and UI designers to develop what they THINK users want?

I can post various ideas on what I believe we, the users, actually require from a homepage and the widgets if requested. Apart from this downgrade, I consider the overall Xero user experience to be extremely good.