While the PvP balance is by no means perfect they have done a good job at giving us more viable PvP options as well as adding more ways to counterplay certain strategys. If you were following the latest PvP tourneys you'd notice that there is quite a bit of diversity among team compositions and they do well with their own strategy and strengths.

I like most of the balance changes except for the Mesmer Scepter. More PU :/

That being said the fashion collecting system is stil far superior to for example the CraftRNG2win systen from Archeage.

New trading post and set preview are pretty cool. No more TP lagg thank god!
Can't comment on the newbie changes since I'm not leveling new chars.