For the switch, plus and minus have a symbolic benefit of matching their position on the console itself when the joycons are detached. It's not significant enough to warrant the rename but it at least is more than just a rename.
I get being nostalgic for Start/Select but how does Options/Share not make more sense? The options button brings up a menu of options for most games and share allows you to share screenshots or video from the game. Whereas start did the same thing options does now which has nothing to do with the word Start and Select was sorta a catch all button for an action you only used occasionally, but was never used for selecting which was usually X but sometimes one of the other shapes.
Options I kinda get but it sounds dumb to me, would've been better as "menu" because it's not exclusively for options, also for pausing and other menus.
Share isn't what that button normally does at all in my mind, sure maybe PlayStation have it bound to that but normally it brings up an alternate menu to start that isn't the pause menu (like in Minecraft and overwatch it brings up player list/scoreboard as an example
I haven’t played Overwatch or Minecraft but every game I’ve played with one of those options used pressing in the touchpad to do that. I’ve never played a game where the share button didn’t share somehow.
I do agree that menu would’ve been a better name, but that doesn’t mean that Options doesn’t make more sense than Start which is what the original comment said.
The traditional role of the Select button is actually handled via the D-pad in most games. It was the button you used to change your selection, not to actually select something (that would be done with Start.)
Of course, even in the NES era past the first couple of years menus could generally be navigated with the D-pad, so even then Select was pretty useless, which is probably why the Genesis didn't bother with it.
I think it’s specifically a PS4/PS5 thing. I couldn’t find other controllers with an Options/Share combination. And I imagine if you use a PS4/PS5 controller for PC, it handles it differently. But it makes sense since the controller wasn’t designed for that.