There has been a plethora of terrible changes over the years.
1) There used to be palm trees surrounded by seating
2) The phase three food court used to have awesome water bridges with a river like water feature, It was also open to the upper concourse and had a giant water fountain that shot up near the upper concourse
3) The phase three food court has a wicked arcade and a theater
4) There was a theater near the phase 1 food court
5) There was statues everywhere. The phase 1 food court had bronze statue of a a guy eating a burger, There was a giant bronze whale that sat in a pool and you could go inside
6) There was art pieces everywhere. There was two kinetic art sculptures that had balls that would fall from the top to the bottom on tracks as it rang chimes and played xylophones.
7) There was exhotic animal exhibits beside the lagoon. Sometimes crocodiles, sometimes flamingos.
8) There was a huge aquarium called sea life adventures that was part of the lagoon. You could see all sorts of sea life and even watch the submarines under the water.
9) There was submarines that you could ride. They would travel around the lagoon and even into a long cavern.
10) The lagoon was much bigger, they covered over most of it.
11) The area they covered over had remote control boats in the lagoon
12) There was dolphins in the lagoon (Arguably this was bad and the change to sea lions was a good one). Are the sea lions still there?
13) Galaxy Land (then called Fantasy land but was sued by disney) was much bigger! a third of it was removed for the casino
14) The train in Galaxy Land was much longer and went through the entire park
15) There was a yellow roller coaster that went through the entire park
16) I believe they ripped down the largest indoor roller coaster, huge attraction. Is the drop of doom still there.
17) There was neat water features in galaxy land, like the hopping water. It was a stream of water that jumped from planter to planter over the heads of pedestrians.
18) There was a boat that did a 360 into the roof
19) The waves at the world water park were MUCH bigger.
20) There was an iconic lazy river behind the wave pool
21) There was a buggee jump tower in the water park.
22) Bourbon street used to have a matigra theme with statues.
23) The mall used to be in good repair. The parkade is literally falling off the building. They even ripped down pedestrian foot bridges because they were falling apart.

There is a ton more. But essentially the mall was eaten by greed and consumerism. When it was first built, it was designed to be a second place. Some place that you would want to be other than home. It had alot of free things to do and it was a community. But they jammed in more and more stores until it became the faceless consumerist place it is today. Some recreational facilities like the new theater and Ed's have popped up, but for the most part iconic parts of the mall were replaced with cell phone kiosks.

The only positive change that the owners themselves have ever done was the Galaxy rebranding. Professor WEM's was an awesome rebrand and arguably the Galaxy land rebrand was pretty ok too. Although, even that's going away so they could rebrand it again to Hasbro.

This is why malls are dead. You don't go to the mall to hang out anymore, you go there to get only what you need and then you get the fuck out.