It goes further than just layout changes, though. Please don't think me a Luddite - I'm not totally against change, I just want to see that when changes are made, improvements are made, and if views of users are not totally in support, that there is acceptance of feedback and if criticisms are made, for a body not to just "shut the book" and say "you've had your say, we're not changing, that's just tough".
Web pages (more than anything else apart from the adaptability of nature) are meant to be usable by anyone, without limiting the "audience" by using technologies (software) or having expectations of the viewer's facilities.
If you see any site with "best viewed with Internet Explorer at 1024 x 768" or required some plug-in (which may not be available on a Mac, for example) then it's limiting.
Screen width / resolution is an individual preference / machine limitation. I cannot make my little old iMac display pages of 1280 x 1024 (and never will) so a change that makes the user experience poor should be deplored.
What's happened, (I think) is that the growth in use of 15" and 17" laptops has meant that people in the media feel the need to fill the space, just as a newspaper would do if they went to a broadsheet format.
With the web, pages ought to adapt to cope with wide or narrow screens. Sometimes one needs to limit the width of columns of text (once you exceed about 100 characters, it becomes less readable for most people, because the eye starts to jump to a line above or below). Below 50 characters and one starts having big gaps because there will be some longer words which would need to be broken, and just get placed on the next line, leading to wider spacing (if a column is 'justified' to give clear left and right edges).
It strikes me that the BBC people like to maintain their employability by trying out alternative ideas even when the design that is in place works well and is popular with users. Yes, one needs an "open mind" but I'm more "open" to change when it improves readability and has some logic behind it. Sure, the BBC management will pull out justification for making changes, but if even 10% find the "improvement" makes usability worse, then the BBC has staff failing in their jobs. It gets to a point where I'm thinking it is "change for change sake" and undesirable.
I had not been a regular viewer of the news pages, nor "Have Your Say" as I felt their method of pre-moderation of most topics was handled badly and caused major backlogs. Perhaps the need for keeping within budget has slashed the number of staff (no doubt most are at the lowest levels of salary!) and they're perhaps doing things differently now...
BBC news item "UK 'misled' on broadband speeds, says Ofcom report" (in Technology News).
OK, so they cover the story. They asked for comments (form no longer displayed). They don't have a link to the damn comments though.
I hunted down the 'Have Your Say' web page and yes, at present, there is a link from it to the comments about speed problems page.
In the past there might have been a couple of hundred comments, maybe even a thousand, on something where feelings ran high (like wars, deaths, and so on).
Here, there are around a dozen comments shown. Perhaps a good, representative "cross-section" of views (mostly from unhappy users, with some exceptions - sorry, glanced, did not closely view, was interested to see the low number that were permitted).