Indeed, I am one of the people inconvenienced by this change. Not about to throw much more of a fit or say I'm moving to another browser, even though I really do think the old UI was better for me (it showed more tabs, currently open, and synced device tabs)
Nevertheless, this thread is not actually solved, if the solution is outdated. I don't believe it's unreasonable to expect users to keep seeing this thread when they're in Opera 70, confused as to why the flag is nowhere to be seen. The solution is outdated. This post is no longer solved, and has become a ranting ground for people who dislike this change (note: not dislike change entirely, that is generalization, I believe people who make decisions in Opera that do this would be mistaken)
So, yeah. I'm here because I Googled why my dropdown is gone. There is no solution. That's a shame.