No, this is not new.  It has worked the same way every year.  Fundamental to Intuit Link in its design is that data and documents are segregated by tax years.  Unless you invite your client to the current year and your client accepts that invite, there'll be no current year folder or requests for your client.

What is possible is that your clients could have uploaded current year documents and added to prior year responses in the prior year folder but that's unlikely because it would be very messy.