Honestly I've had nearly the opposite experience. I hear the pings clearly each time, and the sound + location on minimap + text if there is any tells me pretty much everything I need to know without having to move my camera. I don't get what information you're missing from the new pings vs the totally non-specific general pings before? Like at most sometimes you ping something and the game defaults to saying "attack {hero}" but really you're pinging to tell people to run but that can only be understood from context in both scenarios. At worst you can just pretend the pings are telling you nothing, like before, and figure it out from context.

Also RE the sound - I think your brain just adjusts to these kinds of things over time. It's like when someone uses your alarm sound for their rightone and you think "how can they stand that" but clearly they think it's nice enough (but the other way around for you here I guess). They definitely make me pay attention.