I would absolutely like to talk directly. I left this comment on the original post, but I'll paste it here, too. You know, since you can no longer see it from within a reblog chain.
"I sent in a feedback form, and the automated email told me to comment here. So here I am.
It is vital to the tumblr ecosystem that all notes stick to the original post. This is what makes tumblr TUMBLR. You want to "give contributors the recognition they deserve" ? Then don't reattribute them to anyone who reblogs with something as little as "Hey, look at this neat thing!" or "Important info here ^^"
As an artist, I WANT to see all of the likes, reblogs, tags, and comments. Even if there is someone in between us in the chain. It's still my art they're engaging with, yes? Why wouldn't I want to see that? The same is true for any kind of fan content here: fanfiction, gif sets, edits, discussion posts, theories. The lifeblood of tumblr depends on this ecosystem.
As a small artist, I used to love it if a game developer or big fan creator reblogged my art. It gets way more eyes that way, people talk about it, I meet fellow fans, it's fun! But now I won't see ANY of that. I just stay stuck in my own little bubble while the reblogger gets all the notes. I have no idea if people like my art or are talking about it. That doesn't feel good. This change will only motivate creators to discourage their followers from reblogging their posts, or even turning off reblogs entirely.
I don't really mind if you want to track likes on reblogs or whatever. But don't intentionally hide notes from the OP. Or anyone else in the chain, really. I should be able to click on a post and find all of the comments, reblogs, tags, and other interactions if I want to. Not forced to go through chains of reblogs one by one.
Respectfully, please fix this."
As an example, here is a screenshot of what now happens when a game developer reblogs fanart. If I only saw the original post, perhaps because I follow the artist, I would think the art only has 16 likes. Not to mention the original artist wouldn't get any notifications about all those people who enjoy their art!
You say that "nothing about this change is meant to limit [your creativity]" but it already is. Reblogging someone's post with an addition used to be a supportive, positive interaction (showing something you enjoy to your followers so that they may enjoy it too) but is now a negative interaction (directing engagement away from the original post). Regardless of your intentions, it is clear your implementation is detrimental in practice.
Perhaps a less clunky way to do this would be to change it so that notes are still aggregated on the original post, but rebloggers get the notifications too. And maybe a "likes map" similar to the reblog graph that already exists.
Basically, "crediting" rebloggers for their "contributions" should NOT come at the expense of the original posters, who are the ones keeping this entire website alive.