“Weapon Proficiencies: Simple weapons and Martial weapons that have the Finesse or Light property“  

Using a light weapon without finesse forces the rogue to use Strength and disallows sneak attack damage. Am I missing something? Unless there are plan to introduce a thug or brute sub-class that uses Strength, I don’t understand why this was added.

Personally, I think you should be able to deal sneak attack damage with light weapons. A rogue with hammers or axes sounds fun, and the base damage is no greater than what finesse weapons have.

just for ease.  It's not the str that causes you to lose sneak attack, it's the lack of finesse.  While it's an edge case, str rogues have always been possible, and in some cases desirable.  A barbarian rogue could reckless attack to guarantee sneak attack, provided he uses str.  And you can use str with a finesse weapon.  non finesse light weapons?  Eh, trap option, but doesn't hurt anything to have it.

Hand crossbows are Light but not Finesse, so it adds them.

Hand Crossbows as pointed out. in one of the play tests people pointed out they lost hand crossbow, i guess this is how they fixed it.

I really wish they'd drop the sneak attack requirements. Or change them a bit as like using a club(closest to a sap) to knock people out if a pretty classic sneak attack. Let rouges sneak up and snap someones neck with their bare hands. None of this breaks things, it just is fun. No two handed melee weapons sure , don't let it happen with pole arms or great axes, but rapier is already the best one handed weapon, let everything else in.

While not proficient with all of them, Rogue can Sneak Attack with dagger, dart, light crossbow, shortbow, sling, rapier, scimitar, short sword, whip, blowgun, hand crossbow, heavy crossbow, longbow, musket and pistol.

Clubs, Light hammers, Handaxes and Sickles are the Light weapons you are competent with and that do not grant you Sneak Attack.

They also are things you can find in about any barn, if you ever find yourself weaponless, and you can still use vex/nick with a Handaxe and a Sickle/Light Hammer.

It's not optimal, but it's nice to be able to fight with farm tools if you escape a prison wagon while in the countryside, I guess?

Still bugs me that daggers are and have always been the symbol for rogues and yet there is little if any reason to mainhand one in 5e. Was really hoping 2024 would bring back Rogue Weapon Mastery or some other incentive for daggers.

If I were interested in rogues and wanted to focus on daggers, I'd 100% pick up a level in monk, just to make them 'better'

I imagine there might be some players with edge cases where they use a light weapon for the Weapon Mastery property and another weapon for the actual Sneak Attack giving Sneak Attack is once per turn regardless.  It would fall under a style of combat for rogues fighting with two weapons.