Recent major change was the photo page redesign done this year no? (or was it last year?), and that redesign is good.
About the 1st point: totally agree. I use flickr to look for a good pictures and from time to time to post some of mine that are reasonably OK - for me it's not, and never has been, a site to post photos from last night's bash or socialize with people, that's what Facebook is for (and maybe G+ will be someday in the future (but it won't come easy for them)).
I also don't need the site to change every 6 months - if it works OK (and flickr works OK for me) then changing it is not really necessary (or at least, not that important).
About the 1st point: totally agree. I use flickr to look for a good pictures and from time to time to post some of mine that are reasonably OK - for me it's not, and never has been, a site to post photos from last night's bash or socialize with people, that's what Facebook is for (and maybe G+ will be someday in the future (but it won't come easy for them)). I also don't need the site to change every 6 months - if it works OK (and flickr works OK for me) then changing it is not really necessary (or at least, not that important).