Apple do make a valid point that, seeing as battery life calculation is based on
average power use, which with current CPU and OS extensive power saving kicking in every few seconds, getting that average is no longer straightforward and the estimated battery life can as a result be wildly inaccurate.
Not that I'm defending them - having the machine give you some idea of the estimated remaining battery life is useful, if only a ballpark figure. Apple answering the concerns by removing the gauge altogether is not an answer. A friend likened it to a car manufacturer responding to your concerns about the fuel consumption by removing your gas gauge.
It does need to be reported as a bug. Apple should do what they always do and re-establish the standards, set the predicted battery life to be rounded up/down to the nearest 10 minutes or something similar.
In fairness, all smartphones make do with percentage gauges only, which we've gotten used to, but removing it from the full computer is a silly decision that they need to reverse.