Unless I've missed others, as is very possible, yours seems to be the only post on Digital Spy about this, which seems surprising. There is much unhappy discussion elsewhere on the internet.
My Sony TV has the excellent, but soon to be withdrawn Google YouTube app and also an app called YouTube for TV, which is dreadful and keeps crashing the TV despite having the latest software. Apparently after 20th April the youTube for TV app will still 'work' - except it doesn't!
I also have a Panasonic Bluray device (purchased 6 months ago though a 2013 model) which has the Google YouTube app but no alternative available. Panasonic, being dreadful at updating even recent equipment software, will presumably just ignore the problem even though YouTube was advertised as a desirable feature of the equipment.
In addition, I note that the Virgin Media YouTube app available on Tivos is currently not working very well and I wonder if it may be related to this matter.
No doubt Google have a commercial reason for this decision. There seem to be ads with every video on the YouTube for TV app, which may be a factor. Perhaps it is to encourage their Chromecast device (which presumably is compatible with YouTube).
Overall very annoying.