I have too, and I've learned. I was more about just renaming pacnew to the conf without merging anything. I was guilty of this myself (sudo pcmanfm),
I will re-word, you're correct.
And from the way it sounds, they didn't copmare and combine, it sounds like they just renamed and went on the way.
While we're confessing our sins - minutes before this thread opened, I was sudo copying the old pacman.conf from a live image to my installation, because I did just that - blindly moving the .pacnew, overwriting the old. Had to even change the permissions of the merged file later so that I could pacman -Ss as user... 
Oof. pacnew files are definitely one of the things I too recently learned about. For so long, it didn't really matter so much because I used to distro hop like a fiend. You don't really ever need to merge things if they are always new. But I've been kind of set in my installs recently, so I've learned more.
It'll be a learning experience for you, next time you'll take your time and go through. I think I did the same thing you did on my first go at it. You remember "work" for next time. hahahaha
With this release, will installing/using powerpill become redundant? As per the chaotic-aur page, the recommended fastest way of upgrading the system is the following:
pacman -Sy && powerpill -Su && paru -Su
Do i have to change the ParallelDownloads variable in /etc/pacman.conf?
What have you done with the old Derek who didn't know jack about Arch just a short time ago? I mean, not even doggie-years ago. 
Thanks for notifying @SGS . I'm currently messed up as this forum after PacMan update.
The below is for Pamac.
sudo pacman -R pamac-flatpak-plugin
sudo pacman -S flatpak
sudo pacman -S pamac-flatpak-plugin
I'm happy if it works
The below is for PacMan :
Step by Step support by Peer Review 
:
Due to update to PacMan 6 ,the GUI Installer - Add/Remove Software is not working. Personally for me Pacman terminal too failed after update.
I tried and partially got my terminal working
git://git.archlinux.org/pacman.git
I clone Pacman and builded it
Source : Support for users who updated to PacMan 6
We need to merge two Pacman config files.
Follow below steps
1.
diff /etc/pacman.conf /etc/pacman.conf.pacnew
2.Copy output to clipboard
3.
sudo rm /etc/pacman.conf
sudo mv ./pacman.conf.pacnew ./pacman.conf
4.Keep Cache directory commented (add # before line start)
5.Add the below at the end of new pacman.conf file
Colour
ILoveCandy
On middle add
[chaotic-aur]
#SigLevel = Never
Include = /etc/pacman.d/chaotic-mirrorlist
#[multilib]
#Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist
#ParallelDownloads = 5
sudo pacman -Syyu
Check by Refreshing Keyrings in Garuda Assisant (Blue Eagle icon)
If you need another installer like paru (Pacman wrapper based on yay) , type following command one by one
sudo pacman -S --needed base-devel
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/paru.git
cd paru
makepkg -si
He started hanging out with the miscreants that moved to Arch via Archfi 
So just did a pacman -Syu, how do I update the AUR packages ? I have yay on my system but not paru. Are they updated since yay is a AUR helper ? or do I need to execute yay too ?
I believe Paru is the new yay. One of the original co-developers of yay moved on to create paru and it will get new feature updates, while yay will only receive security/compatibility/maintanance updates in the future. So I've switched to paru.
Just run Paru -Syu instead for all repositories including AUR.
I got old quick I guess. I'm done hopping. It's too much like exercise, and too easy to spill the te-kill-la
It change from
to
Thursday? 
Sorry, I don't use flatpak 
I guess it's not a very good time to change from yay to paru, since I think it changes somethings that right now are broken, like pamac, but when I get hold that pamac is fixed I will install paru and rebuild pamac to run paru if it can be done.
Yay & Paru are already works with the new Pacman 6.0. I just tested it and yay -Syu works just fine.
Just an FYI
yay = yay -Syu
Want to share that link please?
yay has been getting its share of updates.
@sammiev Here's a reddit post by the dev of Paru & yay. He says to not expect much new development on yay in the future.
Also a youtube video by DistroTube.
Yes yay will receive all necessary updates but will no longer add features. If it works it works.
I'm not overly sure what is "missing" with yay? I guess until paru or some other wrapper does something different enough that it warrants a switch, I'll probably just stay with yay. Plus I just like yay. It sounds better than paru. Yay is a happy computer. Paru is the noise it makes when I drop it down the stairs going up to my apartment.
Your first link is from 7 month back and there is no real info suggesting yay isn't maintain any longer.
For the 2nd link please read all the comments under the video, it seems yay is still well maintained.
Thanks for the info and I have been using paru for 7 months on one of my installs and yay on all of the rest of my installs. I don't think yay is going anywhere anytime soon.
My personal preference at this time is still yay.