Deprecations

| Q             | A
| ------------- | ---
| Bug fix?      | no
| New feature?  | no
| BC breaks?    | no
| Deprecations? | no
| Tests pass?   | yes
| Fixed tickets | #12625, #12605, #12628, #12622, #12642, #12609, #12651, #12604,  #12607, #12667, #12648
| License       | MIT
| Doc PR        | -

Cherry-picking some pending PRs to make them move forward
Looks like so: http://3v4l.org/vETtp