I appreciate your feedback although I’m really struggling to see the argument for having a menu in the left hand column that duplicates options in the top menu? Also as @QFMathew mentions there is a lengthy discussion about these changes here, where we discuss the rationale and attempt to reach some sort of consensus.
Right now you have a system that gives you 100% flexibility over what links you have in your left hand menu. If you wanted the menu to resemble what was there before it can be achieved. if you wish we can even create a template menu for you that resembled the original menu? You can then edit/extend this as you wish.