Short answer: Yes, that is intentional.
Longer answer:
In the past, it was possible to “snap” to a grid line, when in actuality you were snapping to some small increment (defined by your snap setting) very near the grid line. In extreme (but not uncommon) cases this meant that there could be multiple snap positions in the width of a pixel, and so a mouse-click could be interpreted many ways.
The new mechanism prevents that kind of mistake… but yes it does require that you zoom in a little closer to enable the grid you are trying to operate at. The exact spacing of the grid (how many lines per page we want to display) is still being debated. If you draw too many lines, the page becomes “all lines”. There’s also an aliasing issue where, if you have a lot of lines, the rounding-to-the-nearest-pixel can make them look unevenly spaced.
Prior to the very latest code, there was the ability to “snap” to an invisible grid line between each visible grid … that helped with the visible grid density. BUT we had some complaints about that, too, and now every grid line is shown.