In my opinion the email buttons are disturbing and their explanation is only half valid. All other menus within mail client are still in pully except the ones in the mail view.
And saying it gets hard to use with nowadays large devices is wrong. Pully menu was made for any device where you can't reach the top easily. Pull down as far as you need an release. No need to reach the top with a finger.

The patch doesn't work for me as well. On my Xperia X the mail client starts flickering wild when the patch is installed.