Handsomedan: Probably due to the extensive Beta testing they've been doing - more so than any other releases as far as I am aware.
It probably helps; I tried a couple of early betas and reported a handful of issues, and all of them have been fixed.
scuwp: First annoyance is the news feed in the new -1 search screen.
By "-1" do you mean the screen to the left of the first page of apps? I don't have a news feed there...
Edit: Found a screenshot with news shown there, but I can't find any option to turn it off or on.
Edit 2: Found it! Settings > General > Spotlight Search > Turn off "Spotlight Suggestions".