This is intention of change, to be able do not call this method via predicate.
If I have my own factory and want to use instead of built-in. (HtmlElements will override it - See: https://github.com/yandex-qatools/htmlelements#construct-page-object-using-created-blocks)

As I understood from http://thucydides.info/docs/thucydides-one-page/thucydides.html#_shortcut_for_the_element_method if I do need facade I can use `element` method.

I assume I'm missing some important internal use of WebElementFacade.