It does make me want to revisit the Thunder discussion a bit. I was in vague agreement with you when the impression I took away was that not being required to spend meter on wakeup made Thunder’s neutral and pressure games too potent in a way that threatened game balance. I understand less well this idea that the spare meter makes Thunder’s meter-dependent strategies dominate other lines.
I mean, I can make a few guesses: (1) always having meter on board for shadow CotE means regular CotE rarely gets used, and shadow CotE encroaches on the territory of other non-grab neutral tools as well due to the sheer combination of speed and reach; (2) Thunder isn’t as worried about favoring mixup options which result in grounded combos because he can always cash out juggles for big damage as well, which makes the risk-reward on his mixup options more uniform and makes his mixups harder to defend against in some theoretical sense; (3) meter management decisions spanning different scenarios adds a layer of non-locality to a character’s decision making, so Thunder not having to worry about this as much in general makes him less thoughtful; (4) regulating good tools in multiple scenarios via meter management allows the character to be capable of excelling any of multiple areas whilst not excelling in all of those areas at the same time.
But if all this uniform power and thoughtless play provided by meterless DP comes together to make Thunder so strong that he’s on the verge of contending with Jago, then iuno… I guess it almost sounds like the character needs buffs. I mean, if you want to take away the meterless reversal, then you need to give him something else so that he can contend with Jago whilst making him a more thoughtful character across situations, unless you can convince me that due to some anomaly, balance across the entire roster calls for comparisons to Jago to be downplayed. Or alternatively, maybe it’s best to leave Thunder degenerate and thoughtless and, notably, competitively viable? 
Sorry, some of this may seem a bit rash or poorly thought out.
That doesn’t sound outlandish. I’ve always believed in the wind kick and the plus frames and such too, I thought he was weirdly underrated in season 2.
I guess one part of my surprise is that I don’t think the dust has settled on the rebalance yet. Competitive players are far from tapping the full potential of most characters, and often express lopsided and…emotionally charged opinions on matchups. I didn’t really think a top 1 or 2 stood out amidst the fuss. (I’m still not sure of it now either.)
I think this is kinda necessary. Jago has all the plus frames, but he doesn’t put you into a 5-way mixup blender like many other characters routinely do, so patient defense usually does well against his pressure.
lol, this is part of it. I’ve been dragged into some dumb and, on an occasion or two, abusive arguments about this sort of thing, so it’s a bit of a shock to have a reasonable discussion on the subject. 
DPing out of overpower blockstun is very doable, I just think the amount of times a Wulf does meaty crLK into crLK after a soft knockdown and eats a DP on the second crLK is close to none.
I already remarked that this would push me away from KI. It’s a matter of punishable wind kick making KI a fundamentally different video game that I’d be less interested in playing. It’s the sort of reason why I sympathized with Wulf players losing unreactable jumping slash, except that I think punishable wind kick would be substantially more dramatic.
But also, I think it’s worth pointing out that the low crush property of the move is the wrong aspect to focus on. Low crush does give it secondary utility up close and allow it to tag out attempts to dash in with a low poke, but the primary function of wind kick is to create a big incentive for opponents at the midrange to make a habit of pre-emptively blocking, which means it exerts control over the space two-or-so character lengths in front of Jago.
The difference to me is that Fulgure really does have great tools for each situation. He can phase oppressive zoning into scary rushdown at a heartbeat, either via some very Jago-like tools (blade dash, axis smash) or with the projectile teleport setplay grinder, and the things he can do with meter (pip cancels, shadow teleport and lasers) allow him to clutch out all sorts of wacky situations with one-step-ahead checkmate thinking. You can be getting zoned at full screen (a thing Jago does not do seriously) and whilst it may clearly be your gameplan to get in, your reward for getting in is a fight against a competent rushdown character with access to a meterless DP, so coming out on top is rewarded with more adversity.
Hell I’m starting to think the laser frame data nerfs weren’t as big of a deal as I initially thought, because he can convert counterhits on reaction off plenty of his plus normals and he can pip-cancel his lasers and fireballs for frame traps.
By-the-by, none of this is to say that Fulgore is too strong. The character has meter management issues. But I think the comparison to Jago without damage undersells the character immensely.
On a related note but really because I want to vent, I sat through a stream of a top player (not Nicky) underselling Fulgore’s strengths as being a product of his own skill whilst complaining erratically about Jago’s stupid damage and un-whiff-punishable MP and a bunch of other inane nonsense. Bluh, it’s the sort of toxicity going on around this stuff that makes it so hard to have these conversations of late.
I’m actually surprised that you don’t name Thunder here.
I don’t like this as an argument. It allows people to say that a tool that’s too strong when used at its peak is okay because the people who are able to get the most out of it are really winning because of their immense skill, and that the tool isn’t out of line. Alternatively, it allows R- er, certain people, to assert that a character is strong relative to the one they’re using, because the strengths of said player’s character are really said player’s skill shining through, whereas shadow fireball, fireball xx shadow DP is dumb unbreakable damage that the player doesn’t have to work for.
I think a good thing about this situation as it stands, is that there really is a good incentive for Jago to just go for the damage here instead, and the decision requires good situational awareness.