Another reason STJr apparently had for changing the Thok is because Sonic wasn't beginner friendly, and that newcomers who first open the game will be discouraged to play as him. However, that isn't mostly true
Unfortunately, the devs have talked before about how this aspect of the decision is based on hard data. They've seen countless examples of new players using Sonic, not having the skill to make use of the thok, and the presence of the thok therefore being a larger detriment for them than a benefit. The intention therefore is to make the title character more beginner friendly since he's the one new players are mostly likely to try out first.
This in and of itself isn't the problem though, the issue I think is the mentality through which they are viewing how to solve the issue of new players not being ready for the challenge of making good use of the thok.
It shows that they are more focused on holding our hands rather than letting us experiment and learn. It'd make the game too easy by making Sonic a playground with supervision
And this is the part that worries me the most about it. Games are made fun through their learning curve, but also through their simplicity. While I still intend to reserve judgement of the new move until I've had a chance to try it, it does seem from a distance to stink of overcomplication and making things
too safe for new players.
Take Sonic 1 and 2 for example. In Sonic 1, you didn't have the spindash yet, and so to earn speed you had to make even more clever use of the terrain, spinning in the right places while being careful about how you moved in the air. Speed is something that was earned largely by a combination of mastery of movement and stage layout memorization. Sonic didn't have a big complex SM64-like toolkit for achieving this, because he didn't need it. SEGA opted to keep it simple.
When Sonic 2 came around, they refined the level design a bit to give somewhat easier access to speed, and added in the Spindash. It was a streamlining of what already worked, and did so without overcomplicating it. Sonic 2 is revered over Sonic 1 largely because of its approachability. You aren't given a complex ability that takes time to master, at least not obviously. In reality, you are, which is your ability to maintain speed. However, this is somewhat more of a hidden ability that the player subconsciously feels incentivized to master because doing so feels natural and good. You
will lose a lot of lives along the way, but that's just part of the process. It's like learning how to ride a bike or a skateboard, you'll fall many times along the way, sometimes it will be embarrasing, sometimes it will hurt. But all of that is part of the experience, and part of what makes eventual success so satisfying. It is this process that the Classic Sonic games were trying to emulate.
The problem as I see it is not solely within the Thok, but in STJR's philosophy regarding level design. Players get themselves killed by thokking into bottomless pits because STJR placed them there in areas Sonic can access and is told through the level geometry that it's platforming time instead of speed time. The player gets into a mindset that they need to use their double jump ability to help them platform, and this ends up failing because the thok is a speed tool first and a platforming tool second.
The solution as I see it isn't to remove bottomless pits or the thok, but to design the levels in harmony with both. The main path should be largely designed around the player being able to go fast or slow, with risk increasing along with speed, but player skill being able to act as the main line of defense against the risk. Beginner players who have not yet learned how to maintain speed would be protected by the more simple nature of navigating around obstacles slowly. More advanced players would face the risk head on and zip forward at higher speeds without getting punished by doing so being the outright
wrong choice because of how the level is designed.
Meanwhile, Tails and Knuckles are more vertically powerful characters. They would be able to access higher routes with ease, functioning as shortcuts from point A to point B that allow them to keep up pace with skilled Sonic players. It matters not if the thok is being "spammed" in this case, because it doesn't increase speed you already have and wouldn't be being generally used along the same pathway as more vertically powerful characters anyway, at least in a competitive situation between experienced players who know the level layouts.
Of course, accomplishing all this would be a lot of work. It's difficult and time consuming to build and playtest the levels balanced out for multiple characters like this. It's also difficult for another reason: Discarding work that's already done. I get it, I really do. But I worry that STJR is steering the game in a distinctly non-Sonic direction out of a desire to avoid all that. Perhaps future updates will release and put those fears to rest, who knows. All I know is that right now in this context it
seems like they're out of touch with both their own community and what it is that makes Sonic, Sonic from a gameplay perspective. Particularly in regards to the classics that this game is attempting to be a 3D homage to.