When comparing formulas (in validations, formula fields, workflow criteria...) the comparison should be done line by line.

Considering the whole formula a block and only showing that "something" has changed in the formula is not useful when looking for conflicts between environments.

When pushing changes between environments, admins are checking to make sure they are not overwriting other changes with their update. They most probably know the formula has changed (that was their job) but they need to ensure no unwanted changes are added/deleted from the target environment.

In long formulas with many lines (potentially >100) it's not easy to spot individual changes.

I understand the new XML comparison wants to simplify blocks that go together in some objects like Layouts, RecordTypes etc, but Formulas are essentially "code" and they should be compared line by line.