I love how they balanced this out, (for as far as we can see of course).
The little bump in GHZ made it a very home-turf arena for a couple characters, sonic included... if it weren't for the the breakable blocks. This breakable terrain makes it so rolling/dashing characters wouldn't have an unfair advantage, but the problem lies in how the game treated it. Instead of letting other players force the roller upwards, they force it themselves by punishing you for doing the exact thing the game asks you to do: punch things.This heavily interrupted the flow of the map in a rather jarring way.
It seems like the rectified this in Windy Hill. Instead of getting rid of the iconic wavy floor, they gave it some elevation. Both types of characters can have their fun and force each other to join up, instead of the game forcing them. It also helps the map is far bigger, which will be loads of fun to run around on.
Also, I genuinely wouldn't mind seeing the lampposts return. The previous level was too small for them (especially with breakable terrain as well), but they'd be avoidable enough in this instance.