I don't pay attention to VF honestly. I've played a VF game a grand total of one time. Kind of why you don't see me putting it on a pedestal unlike most people who want to sound cool. Well...I put it's replay feature on a pedestal because it's fucking criminal how no company is matching it.
I understand what you're saying man... Honestly, I don't expect most people to follow the game, not even now simply because in the past no one followed it (thank you Sega's advertising dept.)...
I know VF isn't for everybody-- for starters, it's a 3d game... That for some is a huge hurdle to jump... Granted, it only has 3 buttons, but with the combinations and the need for a block button because of the games core system, it can be a bit to grasp for some, unlike Tekken, where not only can you hold back to block, but there's a neutral block which works for "most" attacks...
Speaking of VF's block button, it is deceptive looking in appearance; what I mean is when you fire up VF5 and you press and hold the block button, you see this animation that looks generally slow, as if the blocking isn't instant when in fact it is instant... The animation doesn't match up with the actual speed... Things like that tend to lead people astray...
Movement in VF is like those skateboards that require you to wiggle... It looks clunky at first, but once you get the jist of it, things start looking fluid and starts feeling like you're in a Mitsubishi Lancer EVO <insert roman numeral>... People from the outside looking in won't see that unless they know at least a smidgen about the game, and even then, sometimes you have to dig deeper to really do that...
Sound-- it's important in the game, but even still, I feel like they're either keeping the old sound for nostalgia purposes, or because they feel "it's working, don't change it". That's something that can easily make people not play the game... The music is great, but the sounds are still "recycled" imo... They changed a few things here and there, like when certain hit types connect, but it's not totally changed...
My personal beef with VF are the ground-to-air hitboxes... For instance, I play Jeffry. If I do a 6K (infamous knee launcher), and I'm in the air, I shouldn't get hit with say Lion's 2K+G for example... I haven't played FS yet, but they might've changed things like that, since Sega has fixed jumping in general, and not you can actually do Tekken tactics and some characters even have combos from jump kicks now...
Anyway, all that aside, I still think the game is good enough to try and support at least... There's alot of good things that have been added, things that have been changed for the ease of newcomers, but still challenging to the old heads, and for the most part, everyone in that game is playable, so there's no real need to counter pick.
Real talk, the worst thing Sega has done was remove Splash Mountain from Jeffry's arsenal... He could be top tier right now, but to me, that just put him at the bottom... I'll still play him though, but it might make me go back to my roots and play Lau or Lion more-- maybe just Lau...