I was hoping this issue would vanish magically, just as it appeared 
Yes there were some changes related to the Pine64 and most of them are actually to make sure 32bit packages are installed also there. On top of all: on a RPi these specific parts are not even executed.
I’m really not sure why this issue (which till now only you and @anfaenger reported) exists or where it came from. If you can’t find a solution on your side, I’m not really able to help atm. “Did you try turning it off and on again?”
time zone: There was a big change here and yes Europe/Berlin is the default which is now (I suppose) more enforced than before. Of course it would be desired to have your system choose the right one on it’s own. The change to allow that once again shouldn’t be as complicated.
Of course and that’s what I intended to achieve very soon. Hey, I’ve already mentioned that in the announcement for v1.1 