Missing from my page too. The net result is that I'm reading fewer articles. My guess behind the "thinking": The designers may believe that people tend to stay within too narrow a range by sticking with their favorite authors / publications, and that readers will be forced to venture outside their familiar comfort zone. That won't work with me--the recommendations are usually out of date and rarely relevant. It's difficult to find the authors / publications I want to read by clicking on whatever shows up in the recommended feed, and typically only a few from the old avatar bar show up at all. There's also a certain comfort in seeing that people / publications I like are active, even if I don't click on their avatar at the time.

As the old saying about religion goes, "Forced choice is bad choice."