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SamsungMembersA
I know for some of you this has been an ordeal waking up and finding some recent changes to your Samsung devices.
Below I am going to give you a list of things you can reverse, and with the help of Goodlock and some modules you can fix.
1. Notification Shade and Quick Panel putting them back the way they were.
Go to the Quick panel by swiping down from the top right, tap on the pencil icon , look for the panel settings and toggle on together.
2. Power Off Menu
Go to the Quick panel, tap on the power button ( Middle Button) scroll down to the side key settings, tap on long press, change it to piwer off.
3. App drawer pages, tap the 3 dots in the search box, press sort, custom. Unfortunately using this choice you lose alphabetical order and have to manually sort your apps. This is the easiest one Samsung can fix with a future addition to the HomeUp module. Crossed fingers.
Edit: with the help of the module HomeUp you can now have your pages in alphabetical order, open HomeUp, Home screen, scroll down to apps screen, toggle on use horizontal scroll.
4. App grid changes, you can customize the app grid by downloading the Goodlock app and the HomeUp module. There you will be able to select 4×4 to 7×7 and anywhere in between. Also some are complaining about the font change, you can easily change this in display settings under Fonts and size. Samsung One use to be the default.
5. Battery pill, sorry I can't help you with that one. I will tell what I did. I took it off my status bar downloading the QuickStar module from Goodlock. Then I added a battery widget to my homescreen. Used Battery Widget Reborn (Google Play Store) with Goodlock and LockStar module to add the battery widget to my lockscreen and AOD.
Edit: Battery pill is still ridiculously small, however in Ui8.5 you will be able to remove background (pill) and just have percentage!
6. Hard to see notifications.
QuickStar you can customize your panel any way you want. I just went with what ever would give me black notification cards. I can now read the text and see if I have multiples from the same app, number is easier to see with white text on black back ground.
7. Recent contacts. Tap on each contact and they will go away. This will occur everytime you add a new contact.
8 Hate the media player on the NowBar being too small and to low. You can add your favorite music player as a widget on you lockscreen. Using GoodLock and the LockStar module you can achieve this. After installing LockStar long press on your lockscreen to edit. Tap LockStar, tap on widgets, search for your favorite, press add, you can resize the widget and place it wherever you like. Tap on the widget to expand it as you would have the stock media player. You can now turn off media player in the Now Bar. If you do this you lose it in live notifications and on your notification shade, it will only be in the Quick panel.
9. Icons too small for you. You can enlarge them, pinch in on your home screen, on the bottom right tap on settings. There will be a slider at the top to make icons larger. If you want to change the icons to the previous version, you can go to the Play Store and down UI 6.1 icon pack, and with the Goodlock module ThemePark you can change them back to the pervious version of Ui 6.1.
Good Lock and its suite of Modules are first party apps developed by Good Lock Labs for Samsung.
UI 6.1 Icon Pack using Good Lock Themepark!
I will continue to update this post as I discover new tips and tricks.
There are many other modules in Goodlock to play with, especially Themepark and wonderland.
A few screenshots of what I have done.
Home sceen with a widget with battery widget
Notification shade using QuickStar!
Battery widget on lockscreen using Battery Widget Reborn and Goodlock and LockStar module.
Samsung Widget remove background
Goodlock+ Themepark quick panel tab
Battery Widget Reborn Goodlock + LockStar module 
Here's another alternative to the battery pill. Download an app like PowerLine that can show you a different graphical representation. My battery indicator is the line at the top in the screenshot. 
