In Bitbucket Server, restricting access to just change merged via pull request, still allowed users to create a new release branch (or whatever branch type was restricted) but in Bitbucket Cloud, that same restriction, prevents anyone from creating the branch, and they have to get write access to the branch, in order to create the branch. So if adding everyone, if that is what is wanted to create release branches, then there is almost no point to the restriction.
Is this a bug, or by design? And why the difference in function between Server and Cloud? Is there a good reason why Cloud restricts the creation of the branch?