I find that the new hitting is risky but feels good when you do make the hit.
I tend to get big hits when I line it up properly. Mind you I play offline so that is a difference for sure. I do agree that some of the hit animations are still off or odd looking but it was in 24 as well, I didn't think any of that would change as it was not focused on, so its not any worse at all.
For my games myself and the AI are usually fairly even or close when to comes to the amount of hits. A game I played yesterday the hits were 37 (AI) to 35 (myself), which seems fairly realistic to how it would be in a real game.