Are the new 15 minute warnings for Gym raids extremely counterproductive because you can't get to them in time. And is the current extended raid time of 90 minutes also too counter-productive?

It's allegedly only for the current batch of birds.

I can imagine it can be a bit of a nightmare for those used to raiding on a whim (like in a big city), but for our environment, where raids generally have to be planned for them to succeed, the current system actually works quite well.

As soon as the boss is known (which is nice and short), we start the planning process on social media (Discord and Facebook) and the extended second-stage gives ample time to arrange groups, sometimes even multiple ones for the same raid.

Perhaps there's a middle ground. Would a 30 minute egg be better for your circumstances?

Not in my community. Raid groups are usually set 30-60 minutes after the egg hatches. So, it's plenty of time to organise people comfortably.

I like it, but chances are this will go away for Mewtwo. Niantic knows which T5 raids are popular (i.e. not Regirock) and with four T5 bosses in the mix they figured most people would like to know what the boss is sooner rather than later.

At least we get the eggs as a warning, they could go back to the no egg 2-hour raid window.

I hope it stays like this, it has changed the gym meta pretty much, metagross and other defenders that counter things like machamo (which otherwise are complete jokes on the 1 hour limit) are actually quite tough to deal woth on that clock. Plus an extra 45 minutes or legendary raids when I have glass, i'm never going to say no to that

I personally find this system better, especially for having multiple Tier 5 bosses, for the reasons already mentioned in this thread.

It has also reduced the opportunism around turning gyms to different colors for team control during the raid egg phase, which is probably better for harmony across teams, but a bit worse for gym turnover and free coins.

I'm having the opposite reaction - I LOVE this change. I love how I can potentially wait across 3 Weather Cycles to decide when to do a Raid Boss. We've already used this twice to take down Golem and Snorlax when they were Weather Boosted and in the case of Golem, where it was Weather Boosted but so were our best counters (waiting for Sunny weather).

I really hope that it stays this way. Or at the very least, it goes to a 30min Egg and 75min raid. The 1hr Egg and 45min Raid was annoying and frankly, it goes against part of the goal of the game which is to get people out and moving. I don't want to wait in an area for 60min to see if the raid boss is going to be something I want to do. Nor do I want to tie myself to a more general location in case that raid boss is one I want to do so I can get back in time to do it. The 15min timer is awesome for this; I take a small break, catch a few more Pokémon, see what the raid boss is and then have 90min to do something about it.

Like you say, it is a bit tough to make yourself available and reach the raid place within 15 mn. Previously in my city there would always be enough people around hatching time to run the raid. I have noticed a bit of chaos in the first few days, maybe because of that or because of people choosing their level 5 boss and then being more spread instead of gathering to whichever egg is ready.

but now people got a bit adjusted and actually take advantage of the 90 mn to schedule raids 1h ahead. I think it is really useful now to have time to choose your raid. However unsure how that would work for unique raid boss, we will see soon.

I think it’s great. You don’t need to get a group together with the Birds. You can dou both Moltres and Articuno, and Zapdos can be trio’ed. It’s fun not having to wait for the egg to hatch, and driving around with two friends taking down legendarys. No group to wait for. Ive saved a lot of time with the current system.