OpenMaw I do love Winston job more than ADI's on the predator. But I really do think people exaggerating theirs statements and also being bias.
Winston team did everything really fast, they didn't have much time(how you said earlier) and they just improvised all around. It was amazing, but I think the reason why Original Predator looks amazing it's because of the Director John McT did amazing job showing us the creature.
Director is the main thing, look and Straus brothers, even though Steve Wang worked for them predator it self was still meeeeeeh.
Also ADI guys did work for Stan and they know how to do prostetics, and know how Winston used to work, so it's not that their skill level is low, but the thing that director can't show it properly.
I don't like the predator face from avp 2004 I agree with that, but I do think the technology of animatronics is much better, just from logical point of view. Because in original animatronics of the face did man who never did this mandibles before and he told that mandibles weren't perfect there.
"just looking at the images there you can see that the eyes, the skin tones/texture, and the shape are all wrong. Not that they have to be identical, but they're wrong in the sense that they don't convey a believable creature." that is the work of director, even original costums going to look terrible with off lighting and bad camera work. So i do think people being less technical and too opiniated. and it's hard to judge the lighting and camera work from this promo shots.