There are currently two ways to rotate the canvas.
1. Use the rotate spin entry box at the lower right corner of the
screen to input an arbitrary rotation value (right click to open a pop-
up with preset values). In this case, the rotation is around the center
of the window.

So far so good.

2. Use Shift-Ctrl-Scroll wheel to rotate around the current cursor
position. Currently the rotation is set to be in increments of 2
degrees. (We can make this a user defined preference.)

Can we bring Jabier's on-screen controls? I really liked that widget. It was fast to choose desired rotation angle that way. I liked how it brought "speed" to Inkscape. We need such clever GUI decisions since everything already feels too slow. The new method with complex drawing is something I'd never use. Even worse, we have made shortcuts work perfectly for every workflow. Even with a tablet it was a breeze to rotate canvas without finger acrobatics. Just to remind you how it used to work:

Following logic behind panning (using middle mouse button - MMB), Jabier added _entering_ rotation mode by clicking CTRL+MMB. CTRL was also used to constraint rotation to a angle value defined in preferences. It is the same value used for every rotation in Inkscape. If user releases CTRL while still holding MMB down, snapping of rotation values was "lost", which is consistent with how rotation tool in general works.Pressing CTRL with MMB still down brings back rotation angle snapping. Another one added was SHIFT. With SHIFT keyboard button pressed down, rotation angle was brought back to 0 degrees, practically resetting rotation, no matter where user is currently.

I think that implemented this way, the tool would be way more useful, with extended meaning to general UX, since it brings speed of preview (everyone loves it!) and speed of acting in general. One can go to 180 degrees angle in a 1/10 of a second. Right now I have to wait seconds until my complex drawing appears and/or constantly looking at status bar to read exact value of rotation at which I am currently.

Please consider bringing back some part of previous implementation. Especially GUI part, which was one of the most polished canvas interactions Inkscape used to have.