You are correct. To a well edjumcated Catholic who knows what’s what, I don’t reckon it’s too big a deal. But well edjumcated Catholics are a very small minority, at least around here, and I would hazard US Catholics are pretty bad when it comes to understanding their faith in general. Communion in the paw combined with bishops who don’t care to teach has allowed the Eucharist to be treated with less than proper reverence. If reception of the Blessed Sacrament on the tongue could help illustrate that it IS a big special deal, I wouldn’t mind the change, even though I’ve never recieved on the tongue in my life.
Freegards
It's a big deal because it obscures the ontological distinction between priests and the rest of us. The hands of a priest are consecrated for his work: he is conformed to Christ in a radical way that lay people are not. Communion in the paw reduces him to minister/presider. It's an important way the Mass has been protestantised.