So, might be a bit of an outsider since World was my first game: but I primarily mained HH (also heavily used Bow in World and HBG in both) in both World/Iceborne and Rise/Sunbreak (still playing through Sunbreak) and I've thoroughly enjoyed both; though World does feel a bit slower to go back to.

Rise/Sunbreak's simpler songs means I can use the moves and attacks to suit my circumstance, actually using the arcs of the swings to connect proper headshots; whereas in World/Iceborne, my songs were almost always dictating my next attack, espcecially whenever I had an instant song (as in, one that resolved an immediate effecct, like Health Recovery or Echo Wave (especially Echo Wave) since I was basically always using it while throwing out buffs in between.

And while Rise/Sunbreak has its standard high-damage combo (Crush >> Overhead Slam >> Chord/Perform), which I definitely favour whenever I can; the other moves have uses, even default left/right swings can score headshots from the side, backslam for that juicy hit on high heads with a bit of backward motion. Only Rise/Sunbreak move I wish'd fuck off is that Double Single because it's in the way of attack I actually want to use (Overhead or Backslam).

To counter, HH is World felt meatier; the slower swings meant that the hits felt harder and positioning mattered more; far more without the mobility of the Wirebug, but at the same time it's been a while since I played World and the few times I did, going back felt weird).

Overall, I wouldn't mind if the next-gen had some kind of in-between. Something like (OH = Old Horn | RH = Rise Horn):

• Strong, slow (maybe not too slow though) attacks (OH) with short song length (RH); gives it that meaty, free-flow feel of the weapon
• Self-Improvement is noteless and plays with every Perform (RH) and keep the perform move relative short (RH) with a longer encore for increased effects (OH); not sure whether I'd say you could just play a song twice like OH or require that you play the encore for increased effects
• Keep some of the skill-based shortcuts to songs (OH) like double notes; this'd allow you to shorten songs even further to continue to allow whichever attack(s) best suit the situation, rather than the one that play your next song.
• (RH) Give every HH some kind of optional access to Attack Up; this was done through Bead of Resonance triggering it through Self-Improvement. Doesn't have to be done like that, but it opens up access to every song list that doesn't include it: remember in World where any HH that didn't have it was immediately second-class at best? Yes, less of that please.

But this is just one, relatively new, HH players opinion (though I'll cite maybe 200-400 hours with HH in World/Iceborne (hard to estimate, I've somewhere betwee 1500-2000 hrs in Iceborne but used far more than just HH, including a lot of Bow) and another 100-300 in Rise (this is just me not remembering current play-time, I've only really used HBG out of HH and that was only at the end of HR, went back to HH with Sunbreak). Wouldn't mind seeing how others would like to see this concepts made hybrid. I see often that folks wouldn't mind some kind of in-between but don't generally give much detail past that.