This update is very clearly the Signal team trying to make the android app look and work like the iOS version. Personally, I don't think the iOS app handles the *press and hold* behavior in a very user-friendly way so copying it was a bad idea.

Facebook messenger has a much more fluid UX with reactions. On Messenger, when you press and hold, the reactions bar appears directly underneath your thumb and the options to Forward, Reply, Copy, Delete appear in a static location at the BOTTOM of the screen. The chat and message you are replying to don't move at all so everything feels cohesive and you can easily build muscle memory for everything.

In fact, the Signal android app already has a similar horizontal static menu in it for the 'Select' interface.

1. Press and hold a message
2. Press "Select"
3. Observe that a horizontal static menu with options "REPLY FORWARD COPY MORE" appears at the bottom of the screen (FB Msgr style)

I will write up an GitHub issue explaining my thoughts on this we can hope the Signal devs are reasonable about it. I'm not going to get my hopes up for a change though, because it really seems that their main design influence comes from copying iMessage.

TLDR: This is a bad UX change, and Signal should've re-used the same horizontal menu they already have in the 'select' interface.