I agree, cannot "blame HF19" as it is made up of different components.
The 2% is the drop in power per vote, the change from 0.5% being 4x drop, and to "balance" this each vote is now worth 4x more. That was the error.
Yes, it is also a matter of perception, being on 50% power now is still twice as powerful as being on 100% pre-HF19, but it just looks worse! And for most people, who never look "under the hood" at the formulas and algos, perception is everything.
What the devs feared is actually what is happening! The ability to stay at 100% power limits one's votes to 11 per day, so after a few self-votes there is little love left to spread around. Again, yes you can pretend to be in pre-HF19 by using up 40 votes per day and keeping your power at 25% (25% x4 = 100%), but I think most people won't see it that way.
Anyway, this part of HF19 is in need of change - the most obvious way is to change the formula for rshares, but this could be combined with a change to a 1% drop. There are different ways of balancing this, just so long as people understand that more votes will mean lower rewards per vote.