I don't think Mai will ever satisfy certain players; she's not your typical KOF character anymore. No command attacks, no conventional dp, barely any non-corner combos. What you see is what you get, but she does work, and she does it very effectively.
Just waiting on someone to unleash her is all, ala Leona and Athena.
I don't think this hit/run poking style while shooting EX projectiles from across the screen is all she has to offer. And she does have combos, though for some reason I saw more of them during the loketest than anywhere since.
The frequent Ex Kachosen is one of the few habits that separate my Mai from Ash's.
Of course when designing a character they incorporate flexibility for playstyles, however the hit&run works so well with her speed, priority and jump arcs it's like saying Maxima has autoguards but you don't really play him using them which is such a waste (and for the record, I don't hit&run to win by time,
ever -- one of the only other pet peeves I have). Yes she has corner combos that, like Hwa Jai, come to life in the corner (Hwa being a more extreme case in damage and in variety) but she is very limited. Most of her combo starters are Ex Ryuenbu or hcf+K cancels, which in the corner leads to a bunch of Ryuenbu juggles, and that's really about it. Between Ash and I, we can perform all the longer Mai combos that we've posted in the Mai thread but have yet to capture the cooler variations on camera.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying THOSE Mais that you saw in the vids is the best Mai there is, of course not, I would never imply something so pretentious. I'm just saying, by and large, that's how Mai is and there's nothing more crazy or revolutionary you're probably going to see in the coming months from any videos including the beloved KCE which I adore as well (but I pray that I'm wrong).
It's subtle, but I try to incorporate as much variety in my gameplay, you can see me going for the jump D (blocked) --> into wall jump mixups and I use her c.d~ub/uf+P for zoning, hell I even use her air dives and they're hella risky.