in 0.47 if I wanted to end a stroke with the pen/bezier tool , all I had to do was right click and it placed the last node in the stroke and ended the stroke. In 0.48, I have to left click to place the node and then right click to end the stroke. Is there a way to go back to the functionality in 0.47? If not, no big deal, just something I'll have to adjust to. It's just that rightclicking to end a stroke kinda got engrained into my mind.

See the discussion in bug #208768 in Inkscape: “Bézier tool behaviour changed with 0.46” - it appears that the current behavior was behavior in the current release (0.48) is how it used to be (0.46/0.47 being the exception).

AFAIU there exists no tool setting to optionally have 'right-click' do both - add a segment/node as well as finish the path.

I don't know if this would work for you but maybe worth mentioning.
I use a touchpad mouse that has 3 buttons. I have the choice of assigning many different functions to each button. Well the left and right buttons, of course I left as the typical default left/right buttons. But I've set the 3rd button to do a double-click. So among other things that I do with this button, one of them is ending a line drawn with the pen tool.

Actually I didn't even know that you could end a line with a left click + right click. I've always just double-clicked

I tried using a tablet and perhaps if I was better at free hand drawing, I'd get more use out of it. But I prefer to work with my mouse.

Anywho, like I said, no big deal. I'll just have to get use to the change.