They brought back the director for Sonic Generations as well! I'm also sure the level designers that remained since Forces improved with every Cyber Space level from Frontiers. The jump from Forces to Frontiers DLC Cyber Space is insane.
They are a bit awkward with the 2D angle, but for the most part yeah they are better than in SA2. I liked as well that Act 2 had elements from Final Chase, I'd have loved if the remix was of Final Chase too instead of FInal Rush again but another Final Rush remix isn't bad either.
A lot of music from Shadow 05 is in Shadow Generations. The music that plays when Shadow thinks he should have never been created, in one of the endings (the infamous "suicidal" ending), is in the game!
I saw your channel name and thought you looked familiar, and then I remembered that you were on the Gen 3DS gamebanana page in the comments of the Shadow skin mod!
They should just keep adding more of these. Fishing, BBQ, making smores, sleeping in tents. Instead of a Chao Garden, we could just have an entire side game about camping with Big.