I'll join the crowd of people that understand, but are disappointed. It absolutely makes sense that they'd want to update the ride for a number of reasons:
1) Both are very old. The animatronics are hardly functional and everything within the ride needs a significant maintenance overhaul anyways.
2) Character stereotypes, music and the film are all pretty terrible given modern social situations.
3) It's obvious Disney wants to stray away from Song of the South. Replacing it with an under-utilized, but relatively popular IP will likely increase ridership and interest in PatF merch.
4) The theming of a ride through the bayou akin to that portion of the film works pretty well.
It will work flawlessly in
Disneyland. I'm not sure how they'll make it work in Florida, but it seems like they have a good team working on it. It'll work out.
Overall, I'm sad but a bit hopeful. I'm bummed to lose the music as I think Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah is as quintessentially Disney as When You Wish Upon a Star, and I can see that song vanishing from the Disney library now. I also really enjoy the theming of Splash Mountain, but I think this could be good as long as they actually invest in this project.