Syndra also has the advantage of longer range, but she takes so long to set up her kill. It takes Syndra 6 actions(q,q,w,q,e,r) to 100-0 a person, 3 of them her q, so that is 12 seconds to kill someone. You are telling me that Taliyah couldn't upset Syndra's timing at all with her w? Nor hit her or back off during that time? When someone Taliyah counters can best her, then she is truly in a bad spot.
The ult is nowhere near useless, nor is it just useful for throwing yourself at them(did you forget you can just fire the wall off without riding it?) You can walk halfway down river, block off the enemy duo at bot(or mid if you are support), then surf back to your lane. Getting dragon and enemies incoming? Block off the enemy jungle completely. They are getting dragon? Block off the exit to the pit so a Fiddle or an Anivia(or any aoe destroyer for that matter) can wreck them. Enemy minion horde approaching a near dead tower? Ult over to not only slow their advance, but also to get all that juicy gold without allied minion interference(or end up on your tower's side if there is an enemy champ with the wave). Near dead ally fleeing enemies? Ult at your ally to provide support and cut off the chase.
The ult isn't useless, you are just not very imaginative when it comes to using it.
As for the w, it is a little clunky, but it is so much easier to use. Instead of a random ping spike causing Taliyah to ignore my second press, it now throws them anyway. It took me 3 minutes after I lvled up the w to figure out that if I held the skill, it had the range and direction indicator(I have everything on smartcast without indicator) On nearly every champ I have issues when I try to push a few buttons at quickly(like Zil's qwq stun) one of them will just not register, and so happened with Taliyahs w. I would push w, then push it again instantly, but it would not go off. And this change makes it so that the skills that come from playing Victor or Rumble are actually useful and people picking up them after playing Taliyah won't have as much trouble learning Victor's e, or Rumble's ult.