I understand the problem. It does take some getting used to, but I promise - it's worth it in the end.
Te real improvement is that the view controls are now consistent, whatever way you choose to have your views configured.
You may like to try setting Navselect (on the view's 3D menu) this will do a rotate if you drag outside a selection.
As Jeff said, you hold down alt then use the mouse to roate/control the view as you did before.