Bullcrap. They corrected Ranger officially through UA, there's no reason they couldn't do the same with any other system or aspect of the game including feats. Pure laziness on their part to not fix something the designers themselves find lacking. I suspect it probably has some to do with...
Awesome! Probably depends on your DMs interpretation of maintaining a grapple. RAW says the initial establishment of the grapple is a special attack action, but maintaining it reads as opposed skill checks. You could argue strongly that RAW allows you to do this combo, but RAI... probably not...
I have to drop in here and say that thanks to this guide I'm playing a Lizardfolk Bear totem Barbarian and its a thing of savage beauty. Two free hands, bite attack, built-in AC, breathing underwater AND a swim speed for taking my playmates for a little dip. The free proficiencies in Perception...