I live in a town currently in the middle of swapping between those two kinds of lights, and the spot-light effect the new ones have in comparison to the evenly spread light of the old ones is terrible.
Although our old ones don't look quite as bad as the ones in this picture.
We have about 50 street lights in our town, mostly at intersections. We do not have any traffic signals so they serve to illuminate the stop signs. They are all the old style but they do the job.
Concept: night is supposed to be dark. The old lights aren't dim and warm tones by design, that's the technology of the day (sodium and mercury plasma). The spacing is for minimal cost of install and operations. That said, blue lights mess with sleep cycle and too much light at night strains eyes. But we're learning. No ideal solution as of yet.
Although our old ones don't look quite as bad as the ones in this picture.