Not a matter of habit at all. More like a lack of knowledge. The short "explainer" that announced the new "magnetic for word-ends" behavior did not offer your explanation. I did a fair bit of searching for alternate methods of placing the cursor in the middle of a word, without getting a useful hit. Thanks for providing an explanation that works - something the original announcement I read failed to do.
Adding to the confusion was erratic behavior of the cursor when attempting to manipulate it directly. I was occasionally able to place the cursor mid-word by sliding it directly, though more often not. Which led me to believe it was a matter of using, say, a particular pressure on the cursor. I was unable to get consistent results with any pressure I tried. And as I originally mentioned, even when I did find I could move it through a word, I couldn't tell where it was, exactly. GRRRR!!