Ok... so I just sat down and opened up the new canister filter. I thought they would be essentially the same, and they are except for one huge thing...
The old one came with two good sized media trays. The new one comes with one media tray identical to the old ones and a ring that goes around the top of it with a coarse sponge in it. I get that they intend this to be a pre-filter, but I dont' really get the point. They removed a ton of space for media which IMO makes the whole thing much more inefficient. So I took the media baskets from the old one to use in the new. As far as I can tell, it should still work as intended, but I wish I could talk to the guy that changed the design of this thing. I'd like to extend my sympathies for the severe blow to the head he must have taken.
Some pics to demonstrate my point:
The two trays in the old one:
Each of those is about 1.25" deep. For a filter this small, there is a ton of room for media. The way I set it up was that the bottom tray had a course sponge then a fine one. The top tray had room for a ton of bio-media.
Now the new one comes with one tray that's a little taller than the old ones, a ring of course sponge, and a little chimney in which you can put bio-media.
Sorry for going on a rant about something that's probably a little thing, but it's been a long day and I guess I needed to vent.