Motivation: it only worked for some CIF files but not for most that one would get from various crystal structure databases. Symmetry class just served the purpose of representing the content of a CIF file and is therefore removed as well. If we want this back at some point, it should be implemented way more carefully. This started as a quick hack and never matured much beyond that. Last but not least: it is one of those non-modular parts that would require a lot of refactoring, more than the actual code is worth.
Motivation: it only worked for some CIF files but not for most that one would get from various crystal structure databases. Symmetry class just served the purpose of representing the content of a CIF file and is therefore removed as well. If we want this back at some point, it should be implemented way more carefully. This started as a quick hack and never matured much beyond that. Last but not least: it is one of those non-modular parts that would require a lot of refactoring, more than the actual code is worth.