Just because you are not agree with someone opinion it doesnt mean its bad and negative.
If you expecting that no matter what you do everyone gonna like it no matter what you show you never gonna make good work
No one said that Loner graphic is bad, quite the opposite to be honest. Because graphic is self is good, but it just doesnt fit 100% to rest of graphic that we have now.
And only negative thing that I personally have to say its time it taking to make it. If you accepted to help with such project, even for free, you had to make time plan for it, and had at least minimum experience with making such thing, and to be honest making just one bush like that should take less than one work hour to make in big resolution for feature use or for selling it for other project(because you can make money from it). But this is my personal opinion and you dont need to stick to it, so keep moving.
Soldat always balance between cartoonish and realistic look, but contrast was alway small so no one cared to much even if it was visible.
But now with bigger resolution this contrast is way more visible so its time to make decision to with side you gonna move soldat.
And as I wrote its really simple way to make that decision but sadly no one care about it even if everyone had almost 100 years to make their own vision of soldat, and now its just a matter of simple vote by devs. Mockups would just make it easier.
Not to mention that when you finally choose, its can be way easier to make other graphic of game because you would know what to make and what to expect, now its guessing who make what and with style, and then its gonna be problem to modify it over and over to fit to rest of game.
So no, its not about Loner graphic but just about deciding what to make with soldat and how this graphic fits to rest of game.