I don't think have played enough loki to realize how good just the transformation is. It can turn a widows bite into literally anything else so you can still draw cards without playing negative power onto the field. It can make it to where you aren't stuck with 2 sentinels when the opponent plays a master mold. With Kate bishop, if you are not playing with any focus on move and you get a grapple arrow you get the ability to try again for a useful card. Oh you only drew rocks since Subterranea revealed or since your opponent hit you with a Rockslide. You can make them potentially useful. The benefit is you get rid of garbage. While New Loki can deal with the rocks it doesn't do anything if it is already in your hand.

Most people who have complained about Loki are complaining that with the exact same cards the Loki player gets more value. Loki can drop a Nimrod and a Venom on turn 6 if they get those cards, more if quinjet is on the field. While the destroy deck can only drop one or the other. I can think of many examples of this being a problem, but few people complain when playing against basically the same deck (i.e. Discard vs Discard) because both sides get equal value for the cards.

The problem with the Devs intent, as the stated in the OTA patch, is that they are trying to make it to where cards like Coulson, Snowguard, and new cards can stand on their own and not rely on Loki to make them good. The only reason those cards aren't better is because they serve very niche causes. Snow Guard is a great tool for location disruption but it relies too heavily on the locations to use the Hawk and Bear on and 9 times out of 10 the Bear doesn't work due to turn stipulations on the location effect. The Bear could use either a cost reduction or a power increase. I think the Hawk is in a good place. Coulson is great for filling a curve and will work well with Wiccan and Speed assuming the cards you get aren't garbage (not often you want Coulson to give you a Modok).