My own take: Most of the zoners that already kicked the crap out of us are still going to kick the crap out of us, but the characters we actually had moderately good match-ups against are now moving way the hell up the tiers.
If you want to work on hit confirming, do what I just started doing - turn training mode CPU to random block.
When they block, do a blockstring. When it hits, do a combo. Continue doing that until you can reliably go into combos.
If you don't watch SF tournies, you wouldn't get the Adam Sessler thing.
He commentated on top 8 (4?) at Evo 2k10 for SSF4. And it was so awful. He's most definitely not into fighting games lol.