Previously, even if the way the command worked was really poor, you were able to have different formatting or styles within a single nickname, like different colored gradients for different parts of the name, or simple stuff like HelloThisIsACoolName.
Example:

Now, with the /cosmetics command you can only set your name to a string (with no format whatsoever) with /cosmetics nick set, and then apply a single type of format to the whole name with /cosmetics nick color (along with the other animated gradient options, but thats not the focus here, those are really cool)