Why are the champion texture balances REMOVING DETAIL? D:

I like how Riot is updating a lot of their champion base and skin textures for the SR update, but unfortunately it also seems like there's a lot of detail being removed from these skins as well. You can check out the first batch here at http://www.surrenderat20.net/2014/09/912-pbe-update-first-batch-of-texture.html#more .

Don't get me wrong, some are being done pretty well. I like how champions such as Ahri, Ashe, and LeBlanc are coming along, their updates improve the textures without taking away from their aesthetic appeal. However, you can see a lot of the minutiae being purged from the skins on champions like Akali, Nautilus, Corki's skins, Xerath, etc... Let's take Nautilus and Orianna for example: their colors have been adjusted to be slightly more subdued to tie into the newer colors on the SR update, however in doing so they lose the details which accentuate different parts of their base skins. Nautilus' armor looks nearly all the same color and his anchor doesn't appear to have spent any time in the depths of the sea. Orianna is a tad different, her incredibly bright yellow has been subdued with a much more classy gold color. However, details in her metalwork on "The Ball" as well as her character figure have yet to be buffed accordingly to fit with her new scheme. They didn't necessarily need to stand out as much before as the bright yellow made them 'pop', but the gold is less forgiving. On that same note, Xerath also suffers from a contrast nerf, where the runic designs on his sarcophagus are far less visible than they were before the texture update.

Lastly, for any Rioters reading this, I want to turn your attention to this post made a few days ago by a summoner who goes by Mars: http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=4849631

He pointed out great inconsistencies between the Cassiopeia in-game model and the splash art, and even went so far as to create models which would more accurately reflect what it should look like in game (if one was to make the model as a representation of the splash art, not the other way around). Specifically, among his chief concerns were that the scales differ greatly in color and consistency from both the old model and the new splash art. His concerns about the inconsistencies appeared to be legitimate after the new model was released and appeared significantly different from both the old model and new splash art. (Since he didn't include it, the old model vs new comparison can be found here: http://www.surrenderat20.net/2014/09/patch-416-cassiopeia-and-renekton-model.html#more) His concerns addressed something I noticed which was different and made me not particularly enjoy the texture update, but unfortunately I'm not the best at 'one of these things is not like the other' and wasn't unable to figure it out until seeing Mars' post.

So Rioters, I ask you this:

1. Why the drastic change to Cassiopeia's in-game model?
2. Was it intended to be this different from the splash art?
3. As Mars asked, is there any chance for a "Traditional Cassiopeia" skin, given that her scales are so drastically different and this consists of about half her model?

Thanks to any and all who have read this, sorry for the long post