@Sharke > When they say Lanes are optional, I think they are only talking about automation lanes. You can't go back to layers as they were before... but if you collapse the automation Lanes, you can see the ghosted envelopes with the wave form as you used to. If you hold down the shift button as you mouse over the various envelopes, you can identify the envelopes. If you then click on one, it activates that envelope. I often do this for touching up or where I want to see the track full screen for finer work. You can maximize the track (harder to do with the automation lanes). You can also see the wave form under the envelope rather than above it.
When you are told you can do it the old way or the new way, I think the new way is to do envelope automation in-lane where the old way is to do envelope automation with lanes collapsed.