User-unfriendly and fragile workflow for updating passwords?

Hello @Lorens! 👋

Before I answer your question, I see that you're using an old and no longer supported version of 1Password and I recommend that you upgrade to the latest version: Upgrade to 1Password 8

There's no need to duplicate items before changing a password since 1Password already remembers your old passwords for you. After you change a password for a given website you can view old passwords that you've used on that website by hovering over the password field and then clicking View Password History:

If you're already using a 1Password membership then you can also view an item's history on 1Password.com: View and restore previous versions of items

Let me know if you have any questions. 🙂

-Dave