Before, items would pile up around 1-2 blocks around your death point maybe three too, but now items can spread up to 10 blocks away from your death point and they are scattered all over and harder to find, no matter what death you have.
Steps to reproduce:
Get some items
Die
Go to death point
Observed results: the items are spread in every direction up to 10 blocks away from original death point
Expected results: items are 1-2 blocks from original death point
This is intentional, see MC-156766.