Unfortunately Rough Divide's animation was stolen straight from Dissidia, which was an incredibly "floaty" game, which is why it looks so awkward in this one. I kinda like the IT'S TREASON THEN animation, but I can understand why many don't. As for sounds, the only one I TRULY like more than the original is Burst Strike. Gnashing Fang as you said is louder now, but the actual "slashes" of the combo sound dull and hard to identify now. If they just increased the explosion sound it'd be perfect. Burst Strike now sounds like the actual FF8 trigger pull which is nice, but now with all the thwacks...The 1-2-3 Solid Barrel combo sounds ridiculous now as we've well covered. Nothing we can do but keep trying to appeal to them.

I'll probably upgrade my ticket frequency to once a week. I too worry they'll just let this sit out of pride, not wanting to undo a change after hastily applying it to save face.