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From what I remember of 5e, I think the "ritual" tag was supposed to handle a lot of the situational utility stuff.
Edit: I also prefer the 3.5e system, because I like my wizards strong and versatile. Pathfinder tried to balance them a bit by making the spells weaker (I think), but overall Pathfinder wizards are still acceptable to me (even if I don't care for the default Pathfinder setting all that much).
Spontaneous spell casting is more convenient and fun than prepared spell casting for most players, I believe. It's also more powerful, so it's not surprising that the game designers try to balance it in various ways. Originally with the Sorcerer, that was with fewer spells known. Pathfinder has an Arcanist class that instead tries to balance it with fewer spell casts. 5e's Wizard class tries to keep both the large number of known spells and the number of spells cast, instead reducing the number of spells prepared (and giving metamagic to Sorcerers).
Honestly, I think the concentration mechanic and spell nerfs that 5e did are the bigger sticking point for me.
They probably had more impact on my enjoyment when actually playing, but I have some sympathy for these two changes because they did at least partially solve issues that were widely complained about in 3.5e.
Spellcasters ignoring the recommended adventuring day to dump everything immediately made fighters feel irrelevant, which is less of a problem now that the spells are weaker. I also don't think anyone liked the pre-fight buff dance that happened whenever a party got to surprise their foes, which has been killed off entirely by concentration.
I disagree but I can see someone liking those changes enough to outweigh having less interesting and impactful spells.
On the other hand, the loss of proper prepared spellcasting feels like almost entirely downside since we went from having a choice between wizard and sorcerer to two flavors of sorcerer.
I think they might have initially intended this, but most of the best utility spells got left off the ritual list. That was a good decision. Characters being able to cast Detect Magic and Leomund's Tiny Hut effectively at-will was enough of a problem. The idea of dealing with characters who get to cast Fly, Fabricate, or Clairvoyance any time you let them sit still for half an hour should fill any DM with dread.
Rituals were a mistake and if WotC ever gets tired of making slight iterations on 5e I hope the next edition removes or reworks them. At least make them limited by something other than just time!
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