It's certainly a different way to play the game now. None of our wars have come anywhere close to max stars since Stage 3, and anything 3+ stars against a max 3D base is considered a good score. Paying to win isn't even working; in our current war they're attacking us with EA on every attack and failing miserably. I am an attacker and always go offensive coals, but even my base has defended a few times (rarely happened pre-balance).
To me, the main downside is that underdog alliances with strong attackers but no beefy bases at the top can no longer compete. I have faced many leaderboard alliances where their top guys were only in the 260s, but they had a ton of skilled (but rushed) CWA and atomic attackers. Those will be weeded out, and only the heavyweights will remain. Speed attackers are also weeded out by these changes, as time tiebreakers will be extremely rare.