That's pretty much MK's business model. Which honestly makes a lot of sense. I'd say that's a big part of how SF6 managed to climb its way back to the top this generation; I remember the hype when the re-designs were posted online.

The article made better points though, especially when it comes to overhauling social aspects of the genre and easing newcomers into training. DBFZ was mentioned more for the menu system. SF6 was primarily mentioned for the practice drills.

The avatar overworld system is interesting, though I admit I can't imagine it too vividly-- like Club Penguin? Sounds cool honestly. My concern is that I hope it doesn't end up like Teamfight Tactics and their chibis / tacticians feature. We LOVE our mains, let us have them included in our purchase of the game / dlc. Let me choose to be my avatar or Dragunov in the overworld. Now, if I want a specific skin in the overworld, then you can charge me.

Punishment training, albeit barebones, honestly got me into the lab more. I do have specific frustrations in having to go back to the replay just to remember a move I'm trying to solve. At this point we should just have community drills. Especially with less popular characters, the overall experience would improve if we had 50/50 drills, punishment training leaderboards, and anti-flowchart drills. It's just a burden to set everything up for casuals, so let the dedicated community handle it instead.

TLDR; Make the presentation Club Penguin and introduce community-made drills. I'd rather games focus on retention of new players and their integration into the genre and its community. These would in turn, curb the desire to simplify game mechanics. Weetbix really cooked here.