investment tracking 2007 vs 2017 mac

First, Intuit isn't the owner of Quicken; it's been an independent company for the past 5 years.

Second, you've "upgraded" to an older version of the current modern Quicken Mac. A lot of enhancements have been made to Quicken Mac since 2017. Whether the current version would address some of your needs depends on more specifics, so I can't say for certain.

Third, nothing was "stripped away"; the current quicken Mac is a still-in-progress complete re-write of Quicken for Mac. So nothing was taken away, but some things haven't yet been re-created in the new program. Why? Because there are hundreds of user requests for different features, the code of Quicken is complex, and the development team isn't huge -- which means progress is slower than anyone would wish. There's definitely forward progress, which is apparent when comparing Quicken 2017 and the current product, but it will take additional years to build all the functionality users want in Quicken.

Watch lists are a feature that haven't been implemented in the modern Quicken Mac. There is an existing Idea thread on this site asking for this feature. Unfortunately, it hasn't garnered much attention and doesn't seem to be something a lot of people are clamoring for. But it will help if you -- and anyone else reading this who wants to see this -- click here and vote for this feature (click the little gray arrow under the counter in the blue box).

A suggested work-around that's imperfect but might prove to be adequate depending on your needs would be to set up a manual investment account called "Watch List" and mark it as a "Separate" account so it doesn't show up as part of your Net Worth. For each security you want to watch, add 1 share of the company. To track your "watch list securities", click on this dummy account in the left sidebar, and in the Portfolio view you can track the returns on your "investment".

As for seeing gains & losses, you can see that in Quicken in the Tax Schedule report.