(little late to the party D: )
I super agree that the new ui is too restrictive. The main draw of FF14s music was just how open and configurable it was.

After playing around with it for a week I'm disappointed. First impression of the new sounds and layout immediately reminded me of a free piano app for phones/tablets. For now, I put Bard on the shelf and muted performance music.

I have no idea why they decided to change out the harp sound but it and the piano one (which sounds out of tune) sound like they were ripped from a midi program or something.

Other sounds are nice,but the way it feels playing with this new ui (even after configuring keys) is rigid and skips notes if you're clumsy with keystrokes. It'd be stellar if we could do two or three notes at a time. That'd help eliminate those nasty note skips and provide more depth since jumping octaves is a pain now, with the only keys/buttons for it being from like three options in a drop down menu.