Calling it "egregious" in past titles is going a bit too far. The greater delay in past titles is definitely a helping factor to what made DOA unique from other 3D fighter games like Virtua Fighter or Tekken. When they announced Akira and VF characters for DOA5, I was hopeful to see what Team Ninja would do to alter them to bring them into the gameplay mechanics of DOA. But it seems that what they did instead was carve the DOA mechanics to be more like VF, so the VF Characters weren't being made to fit into DOA, but rather the DOA characters were being made to fit into VF. which sucks, cause this isn't Virtua Fighter. It's Dead or Alive.
Freestepping has been over shadowed by Command Side-stepping, and the delay factor has been trimmed considerably making it more rigid with less regard for proper reaction and more interest in simply dialing in a combo when combined with the enhanced stun effects and reduced counter-hold viability.
I just really think the seeming lack of delay really took some charm away from DOA.