Drop the site navigation state functionality
After lots of user testing, we've determined that the site navigation remember its previous state (which nodes are expanded and collapsed and the scroll offset) between page loads is confusing and even a nuisance. We've also learned that due to new default security settings in browsers, the session storage is not always available in local mode (which breaks the navigation entirely).
While it's certainly interesting and compelling to have the navigation tree feel like it doesn't change state between page loads, there are a lot of subtle complexities that just aren't worked out.
In general, the default UI is just doing too much here. All it should be doing is expanding the navigation to reveal the node for the current page and place that as close to the (vertical) midpoint as possible. That way, every page load starts out from a consistent state.
Done criteria:
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The site navigation does not remember the state -
The site navigation does not attempt to expand items other than the item for the current page on page load -
The site navigation scrolls the item for the current page to the vertical midpoint (to the degree possible), including when the side nav is initially hidden