How is implementing an emergency difficulty adjustment because the network was too weak to survive its own launch an improvement?  Having to cheat to hit the difficulty target is effectively an admission of failure.

How is a miner tax to fund development an improvement?  I suppose if they are incapable of attracting sufficient developer talent with ethos and principles alone, it stands to reason money is the only avenue open to them.

How is falling victim to a successful hashrate attack by voluntarism.dev an improvement?  I don't understand how anyone could still have faith in a chain that has proven it cannot maintain its alignment of incentives.

These aren't "tradeoffs".  More like a cheap knockoff.  These are signs of a compromised and vulnerable chain.