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Changgi
Cantonese doesn't "lose" medials. Rather, it more like stretches [most of] the medials to become full vowels.
I doubt that Mandarin medials correspond exactly to Middle Chinese medials, take for instance, the pair 疆 and 江. Both have an -i- medial in Mandarin, but do both have that medial in Middle Chinese?
Some people just think Chinese doesn't have an alphabetical script and say they'll never learn it and abandon it. My friends have said things like "I'll NEVER get any of the tones right in years" and "I hate the kanji because they aren't totally phonetic and aren't alphabetical" and I've convinced them that it isn't the case with this and that, but as far as writing hanzi/honji go, You just have to write from left to right and top to bottom, horizontal before the vertical for a cross, outside to inside, etc. Saying that "I will never be able to learn them" is really exaggerated and it wouldn't be the case if one decided to learn it. It's always those strokes over and over again. When we're taught new characters, no one taught us how to write them, because after some time you'll grasp the idea of how to write honji, unlike what my friends claim: "you need to learn to write every new honji you see whereas you don't need to in an alphabetical script".
Bottom line, honji isn't as hard as people claim.
It does take a lot of time and motivation to get to the point where you've 'cracked' the writing system. I think I studied every day for like a full 18 months before I understood the basic rules.