So, since many of the jobs are losing their buff maintenance in favor of shifting them over to traits (in the pursuit of braindead combat), I was actually somewhat surprised to see that Huton remains as a thing you are supposed to cast, and that huraijin is meant as a way, mid combat, to refresh it without spending valuable mudra (which are responsible for a larger amount of your DPS than before).

But I think the most confusing thing to me here is, well, why? I know that Huton is largely kept for the same reason Hyoton is. They have a ninjutsu for each element to stick true to ninja traditionally and that's fine. But why not rework huton entirely?

We see now Raiton is getting a combo of sorts that acts as a (double) gapcloser, doton is getting an addition to keep it interesting. Huton could have been more of the same thing yeah? Something that can be performed to do something miraculous on perhaps a longer cooldown. It could even be possible to throw ten-chi-jin on a 2charge to use up both meisui and some other to be announced action related to huton.

Conceptually I feel that would make more sense, what do you guys think?

I'm ultimately quite happy with the changes ninja is seeing, it's just the state of huton and huraijin was a bit of a head scratcher.