I don't think any franchise of anything would ever be better at fans' hands. And Shane is not taking away from the character we recognize as Predator, that seems to me like it's an idea fans convinced themselves with because they don't like the Upgrade, but the real deal is that the Upgrade perfectly fits in the Predator mythos, especially after Shane's contextualization of his existence. I've used it as an example before, but it's like the Alien Queen. "Bigger, better, badder", stronger, more menacing, whatever. YES, I know that Aliens didn't have the Alien Queen murdering on regular aliens to showcase how badass she is like this movie is doing, because that wouldn't have made much sense on the Alien mythology, but it does make sense on the Predator one, 'cause we know Predators fight amongst themselves sometimes. And the Predator franchise, after 3 movies, needed something majorly new. Yes it did. Did "need" to be the Upgrade? No, but then again, it didn't "need" to inherently be anything. ANY new idea that they tossed at us, SOMEONE would've said "ah this is unnecessary", "they should've done something else", etc, because fans are always dissing new ideas that are not their own. The dogs? We've had them before, they make sense, so sure. A different, bigger type of Predator who has new hunting abilities and weapons and reason for him to be this way that adds and fits in the world we already have? Absolutely. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with CGI if it's well done, looks real and it's the best way to execute an idea, so they absolutely should go ahead and use it. It's perfectly alright not to have the Upgrade as your favorite Predator in the franchise or not to like him at all, but he is a Predator. He fits in the mythology. He doesn't change or take away of what the Predator is, only adds to it.
