This is one of my least-favorite changes in Lollipop. I discovered exactly the same thing. The way I worked around it started with realizing that Settings is an app like any other. Pick a Home screen where you'd like to have Settings handy, tap the Apps icon, and move through the list of apps till you find Settings with its blue and white gear icon. Then you can just long-press it and add a shortcut to it on your Home screen, as with other apps.
This leaves it pretty easy to get to, but only from that one Home screen. However, if you want it accessible from every Home screen and you can sacrifice one of the primary app shortcuts along the bottom row, you could remove one of those and move the Settings shortcut to that row. Then it will be immediately available on every Home screen--actually slightly more convenient than the old Menu key item, though it does require this trade-off.
05-15-2015 07:41 PM