Skin layout hides subtitles

Hello,
I got v17 with Estuary a few weeks ago and something’s driving me crazy.

When pausing a video, there’s a very annoying overly crowded overlay. Before there was only a small pause overlay, now you see the file name and the progress bar.

This is annoying as the progress bar makes subtitles hard to read. This is bad when pausing to read the subtitles (when a subtitle is long or passes fast). But it is also bad since when pressing play the overlay stays for a second or so, making you (sometimes) miss the next subtitle.

I really can’t understand how such a basic UX mistake is ignored in the official Kodi skin?

Is there a way to remedy this?

Thanks!