I wonder if part of the disconnect is that the new editor is envisioning the master branch as the published/deployed branch (see also the “Publish Your App” image here), using other branches for development/testing, whereas previously master was referred to as the “Dev” branch.
My understanding is that this is consistent with typical git conventions, so I like this change. But it will require a mindset shift for those of us who have mostly only developed software on Anvil, and it may be awkward for preexisting projects making the transition to the new editor.
edit: I now see that the last section of the new Version Control docs suggests using a production branch akin to the old published branch, so the Beta Editor will presumably support that workflow, as Ian seemed to indicate above.