The relevant Talk page where the changes were discussed over the past month or so: wikipedia talk:categories for discussion.  I'm aiming for consistent formatting, and the tradition has long been a bullet, followed by the action.  

There is plenty of room for as much discussion as possible.  But newbies should be assisted in completing the process, and this is one of the areas that problems have been found.

Moreover, the standard formatting allows for more easily distinguishing the nominations of Merge from Rename.  Many folks had taken to adding a second line after their nomination in the traditional form (two edits) just to clarify their intent, and the template should make things easier rather than harder. 

However, given your concern, I'll move the default action inside the text= parameter, allowing folks that are so much smarter than the rest of us to easily rephrase in any form.