I'm really happy with the patch. The thing I wanted most was the ability to play only 3 and 4-bar ranked matches, in addition to player matches.
I don't know if the Northwest is really getting into KOF or what, but I haven't had any trouble (yet) finding matches. Of course it varies by time of day, but I typically don't have to wait more than a minute or two in practice mode.
Anyway, the 4 bar match I played post-patch was as good as the 4 bar matches I played pre-patch. Not surprising.
Obviously, I don't have to play 1 bar matches ever again (which I'm thrilled about), but I wanted to see how the game handled bad connections now. The 1 bar matches I played (someone invited me to it) felt very different from the pre-patch 1 bar matches I've played. It seemed like the game felt less like it was underwater, and the game seemed to be running more smoothly. However, the input delay was absolutely absurd. My impression was that SNKP tried to mask the bad connection with more input lag, while trying to keep the game's speed consistent.
In my opinion, this is a worse solution than just slowing the game down.
As I said, though, the good news for me is that I can now avoid the truly awful matches. All in all, I'm happy.