Regarding the lack of utility awakenings on the new GFEs, just keep in mind that some teams end up with too many of them because monsters with two skillboosts or even two lock resists are relatively common now, especially among awoken gods. My Kalloween team, for example, has 11 skillboosts but the longest cooldown on any of my skills is 7. So obviously you don't want too many members of your team to be lacking utility awakenings, but I think a lot of teams could carry one Australias by virtue of the other members being so stacked with utility.
And, as with additional skillboosts becoming redundant once all of your skills are up on turn one, there's a certain point where adding more rows probably doesn't matter that much. Row teams can one-shot stuff. That's been true since I started playing. Stacking more rows does have utility in that it might let you save some actives or run with a lower multiplier, but as far as I'm concerned there's a point past which adding more rows isn't helping THAT much.
And of course both of those points mainly apply to Austrailis, apparently widely regarded as the weakest one anyway, but I imagine they do apply to the others to at least some degree. I'm not defending these as great designs, but I'm not too worried right now. Maybe I'll take that back later.
