Even further testing has shown that skeletons, wither skeletons, and witches aren't able to pass the flowers either. I am still not able to test iron golems, snow golems, ghasts, withers, ender dragons, squids, horses, blazes, guardians, or shulkers.
Oh, that seems like an odd thing to not include in update notes on Mojang's website :/
Sorry for the false bug report.
Further testing has shown that most mobs that don't fly or have ranged attacks are affected by this glitch. Every hostile mob that uses melee attacks is affected, except for slimes and magma cubes of every size. Zombie pigmen and angry wolves can't pass the flowers, but spiders/cave spiders and endermen are able to climb/walk over them. No passive mobs were able to pass the flowers when attracted to food players were holding. Ocelots and villagers were unable to jump over them when they were running away from players and zombies, respectively. Interestingly, killer bunnies weren't able to jump over, but they were able to attack through the flowers, which may be a glitch in itself. I didn't test skeletons, ghasts, blazes, bats, witches, guardians, shulkers, squids, or horses because they were all difficult/impossible to test with the method I was using of having them try to walk to the player. If I missed any mobs let me know, and I will do even further testing.
The world overall was made in 1.8, but I deleted the end dimension and made a new one in 1.9. The end is completely 1.9.
Update: respawning works in newly created 1.9 worlds, but not copies of worlds that were made in 1.8 with end dimensions made in 1.9.
To reproduce, try setting a chorus flower on top of a block of end stone. Then, try to get a zombie (or spawn one in) and have it stand on the side opposite of you. Make sure you're in survival mode and watch as the zombie can't get past the chorus flower. Make sure you do this before the plant grows.
Do you by any chance have touchscreen mode on?
I've only seen it on the multiplayer server I play on. Beacons seem to work sometimes, but it seems entirely random if they will or will not work. They were working when I made the game crash.