Options changed, or disappear. It appears that Apple TV is no exception.
Change is the only way to bring progress and improvement. No change means becoming outdated and irrelevant for customers that compare, thus loss of sales.
this time the screen saver duration option disappeared And the default time is way too fast.
You can still do non-screen saver slideshows, with adjustable timing, from the Photos app or Computers app.
This is the reason why I don’t do automatic updates and avoid updating if the system appears to be working properly.
That is your prerogative, but you’re also missing out on important fixes and features that way.
About Apple TV 4K and Apple TV HD software updates - Apple Support
And if Apple is lucky, then some ‘essential’ third party app requires the latest update to run (e.g. Netflix/tvOS 17 last year).
I think the programmers need to be a little more careful and check their work Before releasing the product.
There are alphas, betas, release candidates, and final updates. In all stages Apple invites users of these releases to give feedback, aside from their internal QA team. Either these users didn’t care and didn’t report or Apple decided against (re-)implementing features at this time. There is nothing accidental or unintended about it. Let Apple know what you would like to see in tvOS, though. Feedback - Apple TV - Apple.