I'm one who hated the changes initially. Game play did improve a bit with time, but I'm still glad you are going back to the old way. Thank you!
I never had a serious problem with losing xp or coins. I understood that I was being credited for work that I only appeared to have done, as someone else had gotten to the harvest/plow before me. Not a big problem, IMO, once I understood what was happening. People need to read the forum!
If you MUST try to fix the problem, limiting the number of hires is probably the way to go. Personally, I just leave a farm if there are too many people there. Wish you could do something about the "ghost" people though. I suspect I've left a farm because of this, when there are really only one or two other hires.
Thanks for responding to your audience by reverting to the previous plow/harvest version!