Please give us back the Single Column feature. I use a lot of different sections for one page that need a variety degree of columns. The first section is two columns - one for a quick summary and a Table of Content on the side.
Underneath that I want a single column to add a large table with information in it. Now I'm left with a blank space next to a table that could be using that entire space.

I want 4 columns please! I have 4 themes in my project and now can't use the layouts feature anymore  

I would just like to add that my team and I also sorely miss the ability to use a single collum!

To echo everyone else, this feature – having a single column – was so helpful when building out a page over time and having to reorder.  That was the primary use case for me to put things into sections – the ease of reordering.  Please add this function back that layouts start ast 1 to 4 columns.

Single column and the ability to move blocks up and down PLEASEEEEEEEEEEE. 
I used this so much over 5+ years. It really makes a difference keeping your content neatly organized. 
Seems like there's key evidence of high usage based on this thread... 

I need single column layout! Extensively used by my organisation on the server version.

I need a single column layout as it was available in an old Editor as well. Please add it. And some other options from old Editor. E.g. colors like red (not dark brown as now) etc. Please make it possible to choose between old and new Editor. I do not like a new Editor, it miss a lot of options, is user-unfriendly and it takes more time to work with it.

Vote for the last issue listed in Issue Links -  CONFCLOUD-68508

The request wasn't "make it so we won't want a single column", it was "allow a single column".  No part of this has gone away, we STILL need and WANT a single column layout back.

The new editor works different. There is no need for a single column page layout, therefore I know understand, that this request is obsolet.

Is there really no update since March 2020 on this?  

Hello Support-Team

I really need the single column in the layouts. Help me!

Best Regards

Patrick

Hi!

Had to ask ChatGPT 3.5 on how to move a section up or down a page.  ChatGPT 3.5 doesnt know anything after Septmber 2021 but that doesn't matter for this issue

The answer? Copy and an delete the old one. Then paste the section where you want to move to.  Cumbersome!

In the old editor you where able to move a section up and down pressing an arrow in the section menu. Easy!

Atlassian: This might seem like a minor issue, but for us who do updates of wiki-pages daily basis, this is a kind of showstopper. We are cosidering to increase the use of Confluence in our org, but this issue has to be addressed first.
 
 

----Me: Are you an expert on the atlassian confluence cloud service?

ChatGPT
I'm familiar with Atlassian Confluence and can provide general information and assistance related to it. Confluence is a popular collaboration and documentation platform developed by Atlassian, designed to help teams work together on projects, share information, and create documentation. Confluence Cloud is the cloud-based version of this platform.

While I can provide general information, tips, and troubleshooting advice about Confluence Cloud, please keep in mind that my knowledge is based on information available up until September 2021, and I might not be aware of specific updates or changes that have occurred after that date. If you have specific questions or need detailed technical assistance, I recommend reaching out to Atlassian's official documentation, support, or community forums for the most accurate and up-to-date information.

Me: on a page usage of layouts is very useful. I have a page with several layouts . I want to move a layout up or down on the page. how to do that?

ChatGPT
As of my last knowledge update in September 2021, Atlassian Confluence Cloud doesn't have native support for directly moving layouts up or down on a page like you can with some other types of content. The layout structure in Confluence Cloud is typically determined by the sections and columns you've set up on a page.

If you want to rearrange the content within a layout, here's a workaround you can use:

1. Copy Content: Copy the content from the layout you want to move.

1. Delete Content: Delete the content from the original layout.

1. Paste Content: Paste the copied content into the desired layout or section.

1. Adjust Formatting: You might need to adjust formatting and reinsert any macros or special elements that were present in the original layout.

It's fairly clear that investment into some Atlassian tools is quite the gamble as is the case here with this publishing part of the Atlassian suite.  With collaborative documentation tools that are feature laden and "natural" for any person that has touched a computer in the last 25-30 years (like Office 365), there is simply little to no reason to invest in Confluence, when with a single decision by Atlassian, all past work can be rendered a giant mess.  It's a clear indication of an organization that is out of touch with customers' usage of the product/service that is offered first of all, competition second of all, and lastly, incredibly slow to react.  About as non-agile as one can imagine.

Pretty angry since the single column layout and moving sections up and down was a very important way to keep my wikis organized.   The fact that you didn't think this was critical enough to have in MVP or shortly thereafter is...disappointing.

I also want to have the single column layout as was available and used extensively by my organisation on the server version.

Time to move back to SharePoint

Yes please give us the ability to AT LEAST customize the widths of the columns. Ideally we should be able to select between 1, 2 or 3 columns and then be given values, or percentages as we had previously, to customize the widths of those columns. 

Me and my team really need that function, so please bring it back!

I should be able to create a new section with ONE column.  Only 2 or three columns is madness.  Bring back my HTML view/edit and I'll fix it myself.

Please, please, please bring this back.  Our team needs the option to move sections.

should be able to modify the width of the columns

The layouts are current entirely unusable as you cannot modify the width of the columns!

Why give a 3-column layout with small left and right columns but then go and make them huge?!

It renders it impossible to create a decent amount of content on a page without either putting links to sub/related-pages at the top where they distract from the pages own content or at the bottom where people will invariably not notice them amongst the primary content of the page!

Building a standard content-with-links-on-a-side-column now results in rubbish pages. 

Confluence Cloud pages now look oafish & clumsy.

I am trying to do the most basic editing in Confluence Cloud. A single-column section is one of these. I am going to go back to my Confluence Data Center server. If you can't offer the most basic editing function like this or borders on images or Panel, please do not force people to go to Confluence Cloud until the product is more mature. Thank you.

Confluence Product Manager @Divya Sriram, pls do get some attention for this issue!

Its affecting directly how useable Confluence is.  New users who don't have any experience with the old editor will just believe the service has a editor with very restricted features. Those users will not upvote nor find this issue because they don't know what's missing.  It's affecting the usability of the editor.  They will just come to the conclusion that the Confluence editor has an editor that's not any good.

I did a list out of all open CONFCLOUD issues ordered by votes.  Of all the open issues CONFCLOUD-67648 is on the 44th place in the list with 315 upvotes.  Looks like the issues with more votes are mainly nice to have features.

I guess my point is, this issue has less attention by the Atlassian Confluence team that it should have.

And pls do not tell me that there is an option buried down the template list where the old editor is available.

Please bring back the single column section and ability to move sections up and down. Essential for organizing a page that is constantly evolving.

I'm not sure what happened to the easy-to-use, super versatile Confluence we used to have just a year or two ago, and what we have today, but I'm disappointed to see everything harder to do, and lots of features eliminated. For example, being able to create section with a single column format after selecting multiple column sections. Another loss is being able to move sections up and down. Now I have to create a new section and cut & paste it into where I want it to go. What were you thinking, Atlassian??

This change on the new editor made impossible to migrate our old page from the old editor format to the new one, because of lot of missing tools.

It's like replacing a newspaper with a 80mm roll. Not the same result, very hard to correctly represent information...

It's

like

writting

this

way

so

well

optimized

for 

a mobile

only

but

not

a

computer

screen

Self-inflicted wounds;
"Atlassian User" is
synonym for pain.

I am not sure it makes sense to combine all three of these requests - more layouts is definitely a nice-to-have, "moving sections up or down" is a needed feature request, and not having "return to single column layout" is what most people would call a bug or a wildly missed requirement.

I expect we'll be waiting for all three of these for a long, long time, but items 2&3 should get immediate attention as they have frustrating affects on the Confluence Cloud editor used by all Confluence Cloud users and impacting any usage of 'sections'.

Any ETA on when this issue might be fixed? The ticket is two years old now it would be great if someone could take a look at it and get the functionality working properly. This issue feels more like a bug than a design choice or decision since it seems unlikely that the update would have intentionally eliminated the base use case for sections - which is just a vanilla section in the page without any columns

What - no single column layout option?  Really?

Please read and follow this simple best practice:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_astonishment

I'm in the process of migrating several clients' technical documentation from Confluence Server to Cloud and it's been a complete disaster so far.

The cloud version lacks so many features that we've had to restyle most of the content and remove much of the layout. Wide two column layout and single column layout on the same page: Nope. Info panels without icons: Can't do. Code block inside a panel: Sure, but only if you put the code block in a bullet list. The list is endless. A simple markdown based solution would handle the layout task better. It's pathetic.

On top of that the performance is horrible. Complex documents renders in minutes! and editing those documents is even worse; It can take several seconds from a mouse click to the cursor is moved - if it moves at all. The only reason you can get away with stuff like this is because of vendor lock-in.

Given Atlassian's track record I have no faith that the problems will be resolved in a timely manner. I've been promoting and using your products for over 15 years and if there's one thing I've learned with Jira, Bamboo, Bitbucket and Confluence it's that one should either accept how things are or move on ASAP, because no matter how obviously serious a usability or feature issue is, you just don't care.

At this point I think our efforts are better spent finding a replacement. You have zero goodwill left.

I'm also confused on how to use the sections. I would like to have an option to add a section with ONE column.

I have been used to using server for 10 years. I have to do a project for a client who is using the Cloud version. 10 seconds after opening a page, I was trying to figure out how to use sections. How can such a basic function that has existed in the Server edition for years be left out?

I've got used to using the single column layout outside of the layout sections now but it's very limiting. Mostly because you can choose variable widths for the layout sections but you can only choose one single width for the whole single column area of the page. I'd rather be able to stick to the narrow default width and then in certain sections put a wide single column in. Why is this new editor so restrictive?

One year Anniversary for your status update.  When will the "under consideration" period end, Atlassian?

I'm not only missing the single column layout,
but in addition there's no easy way to "uncolumn" a section already filled with content.

And, btw.: STRG+A = "copy all column content" does not work in cloud

For a section with 3 columns i have to:

1. mark with mouse, c&p 1st column
2. mark with mouse, c&p 2nd column
3. mark with mouse, c&p 3rd column
4. delete section

I need 4 or more steps, if marking with mouse doesn't work the first time (it happens with sometimes tables, complex formatting or macros).
I need 4 or more steps for a feature that existed before!!!

I think I've been following this thread for 18 months. They're never going to bring it back. Just say you don't care Confluence.

Please bring back single columns. They were one of the most useful confluence features for layout management. The ease of moving sections was unparalleled. Now it just feels like I'm editing a difficult word document. 

I hope everyone who is commenting here is sharing the link to this issue within their own organizations so we can get more "upvotes" on this issue; I think that's the only way we'll get it resolved.  I've done so within my organization. 

+1 
Agree with comments above. 

It is very confusing to have two different editors. We are trying to get as many colleagues as possible to contribute to our internal wiki, having two different editor setups does not make that task any easier.  

That being said, the new editor is overly simplified. An example is inserting pictures. In legacy you can easily place 5 pictures on a page in a single row. In the new editor this is almost impossible. I can make three columns with one pic in each, and maybe also put two pics in one column by aligning them to the left and right. But this is almost impossible and the pictures jumps all over the place. Best bet is to stack them vertically, which makes for more scrolling and unused space. 

Formatting info boxes are also a feature I use a lot. Maybe it is a bit easier in the new editor, however it is not possible to place images inside the boxes any more.

Another is URLs and links to other pages on wiki. Too simple. The search often does not work. Usually I have to open a second wiki tab, find the page I want, then go back to editor and it will pop up. 

These are some examples, I got more, but to sum up. We need several of the basic old features in the new editor. 

An update on this would be greatly appreciated as it seems like several people  (and likely hundreds if not thousands more) wrestle with this on a daily basis. (Most just won't take the time to engage these Communities b/c they tend not to produce results).

I read the referenced page explaining the use of the legacy editor still being available.  I do not see where that is an option for me in my organization.  And then we would end up in worse shape in the long run with different pages under different editor functions - like that won't be confusing to users? I was going to post a screen shot of the message we get when we start having different pages in different versions, but the system won't let me.  It says this:   "Macro can't be edited This macro was added to a page that used the legacy editor.  It can't be edited after converting the page because this macro doesn't exist in the new editor." 

This issue was raised 14 months ago and the last update was more than 7 months ago.  Will Atlassian be bringing back the functionality?  Or do we need to just stop watching this issue? 

Thank you.

Leanne is 100% right about the issue. I've used Confluence daily for the past 2 years and hate the new editor.  I can't believe they deliberately removed the ability to move completed sections around the page. It's exponentially harder to add a new step to existing content. More emojis is not worth the loss of functionality. 

Leanne has articulated the EXACT use case for the reinstatement of this functionality. 

Atlassian's product managers, please listen.

What Leanne says!

Atlassian, why on earth isn't this essential functionality re-established yet?

I would like to see more flexibility in columns. Having 4 columns (instead of just 3) would increase functionality for me. Also, being able to change the width of the columns to any width, not just the pre-defined column widths.

One of the best things about documenting in Confluence is being able to use sections for content.  It leaves one free to draft documentation and then worry about perfecting it later (1 column / 2 column / move up / move down, etc).  Without the single column section functionality of before, it is impossible to move the single column sections and yes.....we end up having to copy / paste everything.  It's even worse trying to revert from having a panel in a 2 column layout and moving that to a single column layout.  PLEASE bring back this important functionality.  Also, how about better "drag and drop" editing?  That would be helpful too.

I third him.

I second Brad Developer. 

I wish someone at Atlassian would show some leadership on the new editor issues. 

It is bad enough that there are so many core features that were removed and still missing, but to have an issue like this called a "suggestion" and still under consideration is an insult to long time users and supporters.

I hate it when companies that you believe in f*ck things up like this.

Surely this is a top priority fix now? I've noticed a whole slew of useless new features being added and not this one that most users are crying out for. You need to listen to your users and stop procrastinating. 

Seriously?  Is there a reason it's still just under consideration?  Or a reason this functionality was removed in the first place?

This needs to be "in progress" immediately. I have countless documents that works infinitely better with the single column layout and will need to distribute to a team of over 50.

Dear Team Atlassian, 

This issue has been open since 26 Aug 2019 and the linked tickets were opened on 7 March 2019, 19 and 29 July 2019 respectively.

Based on the number of comments on this ticket alone has gathered over the course of 10 months I think it is clear that this update is in high demand. 
What I fail to understand is why there is no response from your team. The ticket went to "under consideration" on 1 Oct 2019 and that was over 8 months ago. 

Can you please give us an insight into how things work at Atlassian and how long do we as users need to wait to firstly get a response from you and secondly for the feature to come back to your product. 

I agree with all the comments above.

What's extra hilarious and sad is that this issue is listed as a SUGGESTION and is UNDER_CONSIDERATION. What really?!?!?

Just admit that you are not finished updating the editor and get it on the roadmap already.  Jeez.

I have always been a cheerleader for your products and this makes it hard to be that.

What bugs me is that Atlassian positions it self as a "Though Leader" in our industry. 

Your letting us down so just fix it already...

hey @aaustin - I believe I'm a space admin, but I might be a site admin. glad you found it useful, and sorry I can't be more helpful.

Good luck to us all!

@beth.wright
I was so excited to see you post, about how to get to the legacy editor, 
But I searched the Space Settings > Content Tools and 

found no "legacy Editor Blueprint"

Is this Admin-Instance or Admin-Space?
(I'll check the instance as well, but was hoping to kick on the legacy editor in a single space)

And quite a bummer that it doesn't make templates!

@Charles Riberio, I hope @beth.wright's comment helped you.  I'm not a space admin so I'm not sure how the availability of the selections is managed.  Hopefully you can find it!  Silly someone somewhere would decide the useful tool would have to go away!

The legacy editor is available as a Blueprint, which can be added to your options when creating a new page by a space admin. 

Go to Space Settings > Content Tools and find the "Legacy Editor Blueprint". Click Promote, and it'll be added as one of the options when users create a new page.

We cannot, however, create any new templates using the old editor, which is a complete drag.

@don Campbell … I saw you mentioned when creating a new page you can revert back to legacy editor by selecting 'show more'? I tried looking around for that and didn't see the option. The only thing I see when I'm creating a new page is the template option (now on the right side of the page) and my normal tool bar options. In my toolbar I selected the '+' and 'view more' but didn't find anything on the legacy editor. Is there somewhere else I'm missing, would love the option to choose the old editor. Let me know...thanks

@beth.wright - we are leaving all our pages in the old editor and might manually convert if it becomes a step forwards. Right now the old editor is broken, the new editor does not work how we like it, and 'Discuss our future with Atlassian products' will go on our next IT Team meeting agenda - primarily because Atlassian's prevarication about these editors does not give us confidence in the stability of these tools. In one statement they said they would leave the 'old' editor alone, yet now it has been broken - some time in the past week or so I guess.

I cannot base my teams' work on unstable tools.

@beth.wright... On my page a (somewhat annoying) animated check shows up in the lower-left corner of a document when I'm editing, indicating the page can be converted to the new editor and giving an opportunity to preview the conversion before accepting it. If that option is available you can get a peek at what it would look like that way.

For me, since the new editor doesn't support anchors or sections (i.e., full-page sections that can be re-arranged) the new editor is already a non-starter but I decided to see how the page rendered anyway.  It rendered very poorly; lots of extra added white space and fonts overly-large. 

As previous commentators have said, the new editor takes away much and adds nothing useful, so there's really no reason to even consider using/converting pages to it.  Always create pages with the legacy editor (you may have to select "Show more" when you create a page for the legacy editor to show up). 

@beth.wright...I would stay far away from the new editior… It's almost like they totally disregarded the user experience when making these changes. I personally am considering other tools at this point I'm so frustrated.

Did you manually convert to the new editor? or was it automatic for your company? I'm afraid to touch any of my old pages at this point, but Atlassian says you can use page history to revert to a previous editor type.

So - now I discover that pages with the functioning section editor are completely destroyed if they are edited. The list of bugs is almost too enormous to repeat here but the most severe is that on publishing the page all sections that have been edited are mangled completely. Pressing 'return' in a section changes the section layout. AAAGH- what are you doing, Atlassian???

This is a must for Confluence.   I rarely use a must, but I have customers with single section mixed with multiple sections frequently, and they need to upgrade.

Charry. The answer to why they do it to us is here: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftenor.com%2Fview%2Fdave-chapelle-chapelle-show-popcopy-fuck-em-thats-why-gif-11866262&psig=AOvVaw2I0KWdYc0wLwqyAexeMTa9&ust=1587661905761000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAIQjRxqFwoTCOii8dnD_OgCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAJ

Having first wasted a good deal of time trying to find out how to perform the (previously) simple operation of restructuring a page with the new editor, I then was left speechless that this is described as 'progress'. It never occurred to me that Atlassian would intentionally remove this feature. I mean why would they?? In my experience users start off with the 'wall of text' page structure, then graduate to sections precisely because they make restructuring easy.

Fortunately copying an existing page has always brought with it the functioning section editor, and it is reassuring to see Atlassian dancing around the admission that in this case 'new editor' does not mean 'better editor'.

Seriously, why remove an actual useful feature and call this progress?

Hi all,

As we're working through this feature and others, we wanted to address a lot of your concerns as to the future of the new editor and legacy editor.

Please read our recent community post here: https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-Cloud-articles/Change-to-your-content-is-in-your-hands/ba-p/1324476

Thanks,

Avinoam

Agree with all the above comments. This is a necessary feature to creating aesthetic & READABLE confluence pages. Should be addressed asap. Else Google Docs will get my business.

UNDER CONSIDERATION???? What is above this in the priority list? "Add stuff no one cares about" like more emojis? I have yet to meet a single user who doest think these are the top issue to resolve

Moving sections up/down is a must-have before I can switch to it from the old editor. Beggars belief that it hasn't been included in the MVP for the new editor.

Add another vote to needing to move sections up/down.  I'm not going to bother adding any further information to confluence until this is resolved.  I've made only a couple of adds/edits as a new user, and this is a show stopper.  I'll deal with word files on a local server before wasting my time with this.   It's clear that the implementation team of this new editor actually doesn't have any responsibility to create/maintain content in confluence!

Yes there need to be a single column choice. Makes no sense why there is not.

Can we get the single column layout added back in? We use it very extensively at my company and it helps to organize and create better looking confluence pages. 

@cruel: It may be different for various instances, so no guarantees here, but for our instance this is the guidance I gave to my team:
If the page was created with the old editor it still uses it. But if you want to Create a new page, you need to select Blank page (old) (going away soon) when you Create the page (if you don't see it, select show more at the bottom of the Create view).

I have also read comments where people copy and move a page created by the "legacy" editor, then deleting the contents of page.

However, if you've started creating a page with the new editor, I haven't found a way to open that page with the legacy editor (and I doubt there's a path for that anyway).

Good luck!

Anyone know how to roll back to the previous editor?

We had an iphone, and they gave us a Blackberry....

The new editor is the New Coke of documentation. Original was better and we all know it. At least bring back the option to choose between the two.

I'm SUPER glad we now have hundreds of emojis but can't move layouts up and down the page. (n)I'm considering buying shares in Atlassian just so I can go to the annual Shareholders meeting and raise this issue to the CEO. Anyone else want to join me??

I just started using the new editor as well and I agree with the rest. Sections are a powerful, useful feature I have depended on to easily organize and re-organize complex documentation.  I'm baffled as well as to why an existing feature like this would be removed.  Please bring it back ASAP, and do not remove the legacy editor until Sections (and Anchors) are returned in the new editor.

Thank you

On second though, the solution is very simple: Just keep the legacy editor available and you won't need need to do any addition development work!  Problem solved, customers happy (and retained). 

I just started using the new editor and agree with the general sentiment. Sections are a significantly useful feature that makes page layouts easy to do. I'm baffled by the decision to remove single-column layouts and the ability to move them up and down.

Single column sections and the ability to move them around (up/down) has been a seriously powerful feature that we rely heavily on for our extensive documentation.

Please consider implementing this feature before you absolve the ability to create new pages using the older page template and tools.

Kind regards,

Why have you removed the single layout option? 
It was by far one of the most useful features in Confluence. 

Is there an ETA for when we can have this feature back? 
The ticket had been open since Aug 2019, when does Atlassian look to have this resolved? 

It's extremely frustrating (and far more time-consuming than it used to be) to design a new page without being able to easily add a single column section, and without having the move up/down buttons available. I do hope these options will return soon.

Single column sections: I also need this feature back; currently I'm copying an old page to enable me to continue formatting in this manner and it's terribly frustrating. Additionally it's the only have to have images layout horizontally, otherwise Confluence defaults to a new line for each image 🙄

Maybe focus group some of this stuff before rolling out major changes? It seems the new editor has caused significantly more problems for customers than solutions. 

Confluences attempt to replace the single layout In the new editor is a digital dumpster fire....filled with chicken sh*t and dead dogs.

Why get rid of the single layout option? Who Thought that could possibly be a good idea?! That and the ability to move the layout up and down with a single click, were the best features. It’s what made confluence great. If we weren’t already committed to using it for so many things I would not have started using it now given the “improvements” you made. #makeconfluencegreatagain

My co-workers are all very concerned about sections moving away! They like the way they can arrange different types of information in different ways on the same page. Bring back this ability! 

I agree with most of the above comments.  I really don't understand the decision to remove the 1-column layout and the ability to move a section up or down.  Those were very useful features that I used quite a bit, and now they are going away for seemingly no reason. 

I found this particularly annoying: "We currently have no plans of introducing a single column layout as that can be achieved by removing all layouts and selecting either fixed or full width page layout."

No, Avinoam, that does not achieve what I want.  I want a single-column section, on a page with other sections that may have multiple columns.  Right now it looks like you can have a whole page that is single-column and that's all.  I want to have one page with a single-column section AND a multi-column section.  Please bring back this ability.

After three months I still agree that this is not a suggestion, but the removal of a key feature that much of the content and workflow in our company relied on.  If we are forced to reformat our legacy pages, retrain our staff, and revise our workflows we will be reviewing alternatives to Confluence first.  Our use of confluence has dropped dramatically in the last few months and we are cautious to add anymore content until Atlassian has an acceptable solution deployed.

Agree with Shannyn.

I see now that Confluence has by default switched to the new editor, and noted that the legacy version is going away soon (which is now annoyingly hidden). Please don't get rid of the legacy editor until these layout issues have been addressed. Being forced to use the new editor will absolutely ruin Confluence for my team's use case, as I'm sure it will many others. 

If I stack layout on top of layout vertically with no space in between, it is 99% impossible to insert something (even a space) in between, So if I want to reorder something I have to delete and re-enter? what?  I also see the single column layout as being useful.

+1

We need to be able to add sections above and below the current section and be able to move them afterwards.

We also need to be able to create sections with different configurations, including one column sections. We need to be able to combine one column sections with multiple column sections in the same page.

+1 – we use this feature for re-arranging content

+1 asking for a resolution to both of these issues. I use Confluence to organize information. Every page I build includes a mix of single and multiple column sections. I map content to sections, and then rearrange the sections' order to create different groupings of content. Removing these two pieces of functionality negatively impacts the usefulness of Confluence as a content design tool for me.

"We currently have no plans of introducing a single column layout as that can be achieved by removing all layouts and selecting either fixed or full width page layout."

I'd ask to reconsider this.  Advantage of the 1-column layout is that it lets you control width for a particular section of the page and not the entire page.  It can also serve as a mechanism to group 1-column content to, once the feature is rolled out, move the content around the page as a group instead of copy/paste or piece-meal.

For myself I find it useful to control areas of the page that have images with text wrapping.  If you align an image to the right/left and let a small amount of text flow around it that doesn't take up the full height of that image, you'll need to add carriage returns after that text to push down the text that follows if if you don't want that next section of text to appear alongside the image (think of a how-to doc layout).  Unfortunately this doesn't work very well as you adjust the width of the window and affect the text wrapping.  Although you could use a 2-column approach, this gives you less control over the width of the image which can lead to unappealing white space.  Right now I've taken to either adapting to a 2-column layout of using a horizontal rule as a forced "spacer" to push the next paragraph below the image.  I'd much rather just have the whole thing in a 1-column section (basically how I'd use a <div></div>) and group my sections up with those for better formatting.

You've already got the 2+ columns built in there so I can't help but think that this is purely a design decision and not a decision that requires much actual development behind it.  Give us more tools, we'll use them.