Armor doesn't turn red when hitting a player

In any version of 1.8, when you hit another player equipped with armor, their armor doesn't flash red. The player himself still turns red, but the armor doesn't at all. I just found out that this was a change added in the 1.8 Snapshot 14w05a, but it makes PvP much harder. It is extremely nice that the armor turns red in 1.7 because you can see a player taking damage much clearer.