Hello there,
Is not "now" that is delayed, is one of the reasons it is delayed from the get-go, the community post was just not posted with the specifics of what was being done before. Even though this new visuals are indeed darker in some segments where there are shadows, it is far from "unclear" or from "losing emphasis", but that is more of an opinion which is fair as everyone can feel different about it, and yes there are as many people liking it as there are people who either complain about it or just disregard it as not needed.
"Don't tell me this will make it even worse", again, your own opinion but this was one thing Kal wanted to do for a while and was finally able to do it, people tend to forget this is not just "cgs collection #25" is also a game and Kal has a vision to the polish level that it should have. You can argue "yes, but is a porn game, the focus is the porn, and it should be perfectly visible"... it is, and the new effects while not work perfect in every cg, it does give the scene more volume, like when comparing the flats vs render of a drawing.
About the minigame, same thing, is a game and even if a lot of players don't do the minigame because "oh I just need to play it 3 times to get the Amelia storyline, and it give an insignificant amount of money, so who cares". A lot of people enjoy the minigames, and again it's a matter of wanting to increase the overall quality of the game, not everything is just more and more scenes.
"This seems like such a headache and so much extra cleanup"... because that's the point, making the whole game more polished and not just a "list" of cgs to go through.