The battery drain comment is likely about https://forum.syncthing.net/t/syncthing-fork-v2-uses-far-too-much-battery-over-v1/25384. I doubt removing the wake lock will help though, because that was a separate setting in the app (which would make it use a wake lock, keeping the device awake all the time). However. that particular setting was turned off by default.
When it comes to removing and reinstalling the app, that was probably done to prevent automatic upgrades to Syncthing v2.