Also a longtime customer. I think Apple nailed it with this update. I love Liquid Glass, and not just because it’s sexier, it actually works better. The in-place context menus are far better mobile UX. Previously these were dropdown menus inherited from desktop environments which didn’t translate well to small screens (lots of fat fingering potential). The best part of the update was EMTE or the memory security feature. That’s exactly the kind of deep hardware and software integration with privacy protection that I expect from Apple alone.
I agree about the layout, not sure about the skin. First thing I did was "Reduce Transparency" in Accessibility settings.