That's the guys point. I doubt any visual effects artists were responsible for the design; concept/character artists were, under the purview of a committee of some sort. ("Nope, go back and draw that again. And again. It's still not right. AH YES THAT'S THE MODERN SONIC WE'RE AFTER!!") VFX people just make sure gooseberry fool fits into the scene, composited in convincingly (i.e. mesh together layers cos obviously the basic renders don't fit into the natural lighting) and adjust levels and stuff, basically moving Photoshop composition. Not animation or character design stuff; you design next to nothing as a VFX artist. You blend everything together.
My point is this shitshow happened way earlier in the process, could have been avoided with better focus grouping/research, before the other 90% of the manhours got put in. Those poor strawberry floats have to do all that stuff all over again. It's their work being repeated; not the script writers, the director, the camera operators, sound recordists, riggers, gaffers, lighting etc etc Probably with little to no reward.
Basically the 10-30% strawberry floated the other 70% that actually make the film and they've got 6 months to repeat it.