If it's by design, then they need to get with some actual land owners and work on the design. It doesn't matter if the land is "owned" or "rented", the needs of landowners are the same. There's very little practical difference between "owning" and "renting" land as is, and with 1.12 the differences will be further reduced. There's absolutely no justification for crippling island landowners *and* creating unending make-work drudgery for estate owners. It'll be FAR less work for estate owners to reparcel land ONCE at the end of a rental term than to have to mediate every change in parcel borders a landowner might need.
Sure, give the estate owner the option of preventing the landowners from reparcelling. Maybe there's lots of estates where that's desirable, I don't know. But that should be up to the estate owner... not Linden Labs.
I'm a landowner (member of a landowning group) on three parcels on different private estates, and I've rented land on other estates. I'm on good terms with the estate owners.
Right now I can (and have) chopped up the parcel to set access controls on part of it, joined it back again, split another part off to "sublet" to a group member. There's no way I'd feel comfortable bothering the estate owner to do this, and getting the cuts in the right place in one case would have been frustrating... because I had to cut and recut the parcel several times to get the access controls where I wanted them.
Since the estate owner can always take back the land, they're not in any way being "protected" by restricting the land owners. All that they're getting is more hassles.
What is the logic behind this change? What benefit does inconveniencing both estate owners and landowners provide?
Update: this is the particular bit that troubles me...
*** Land on estates, owned by a group or by anyone other than the estate owner, can no longer be subdivided or joined
*** Only parcels that are owned by the estate owner can be subdivided
*** Only Estate Owners and Estate Managers can subdivide the estate owner’s parcels
