Well, I don't really see this as a problem for me, since I don't decline a whole lot of quests. I mostly will decline one if it wants me to upgrade a building that I don't even have up -- like, just today I had one asking me to upgrade a silk manufacturer to some level (can't remember what level), but I don't have a silk boost in that city and don't have a silk manufacturer, so I declined it.
I suspect most of the unhappy people are the ones who have managed to find some way to game the system by skipping quests until they get to something they have already accomplished -- or, they are using these "repeatable quests" that I see mentioned in lots of posts, but I don't know what they are so I can't really say if they are a kind of cheat or not.
I still enjoy this game, and I will enjoy it with or without this change, since as I said I don't skip that many quests. My bigger problem has been with gaining expansions, especially in the beginning stages of the game when I don't have enough manufacturing of any kind going to buy relics and sectors, and don't have any useful armies to send in to win those sectors. But I'm beyond that point now, and I've figured out how to keep my city humming along.