And for how long has it had this "broken" behaviour for? When Microsoft introduced a similar path bar in Explorer (in Vista or 7, don't remember), it had the double functionality right from the beginning. The fact that Gnome Files didn't is frankly baffling.
I don't think it was "broken", it was just a dumb design choice. But I don't know why people like to whine about an issue that was already fixed either.