The things I mentioned here are new behavior, as in within the last few weeks.
I don't know why the change was made, but I do know that Matthew has been working on the Site Software, doing updates and patches on the software that runs this place. Perhaps one of those patches has changed some things as a side effect, not an intended result, but only Karlos or Matthew could answer that question.
I don't have a preference one way or the other regarding having to login to this site to view anything, as I automatically login every time I visit this site anyway.
It is a double edged sword trying to keep site software up to date and also trying to run it with any regard toward keeping it available and working on ancient web browsers that still work on Motorola 680x0 based Amiga hardware, or is that even possible any more? I have not tried to web browse on any of my many Commodore Amiga computers for a long time, though I know at one time or another in the past, there was some effort to keep this site viewable from Commodore Amiga computers without Phase5 accelerators running AmigaOS3.x. Maybe some progress has been made with newer 68k compatible web browsers like Netsurf, but I don't know about that as I have not tried to use it on any 68k Amiga.