Well by saying that DMC4 Dante controls are so outdated, that would pretty much mean that controls in the whole series "bad" because it was pretty much pinnacle of the Dante's controls evolution. They got rid of the limited style system instead applying it to the d-pad, which allowed to use those styles on the fly. Which in my opinion was much better decision than controls in DmC, for simple reason that it doesn't demanded to hold a button all the time to switch between different states.
Don't misunderstand, I say "outdated" only because every character they made since Dante has had a much more uniformed scheme. There were very obvious things about DMC that have remained a core component between all of them (Dante included), but Dante is the only one that has a unique system that they have apparently never wanted to emulate in any other character. The closest is Lady where she has specialized gun actions on O depending on what weapon she has, an echo of Dante's Styles.
There's no intention to call DMC's entire control scheme "bad" because that...makes no sense? Because I spend most of my initial post talking up how amazing Nero feels to play.
Actually as far as switching between states goes, DmC took Lords of Shadows system and make step backward because of need to hold buttons instead of taping them.
I'd slightly disagree, given holding a button is right behind simply tapping one on an ease-of-use scale, and in some ways offers more agency because you know full well what is currently at your disposal because
you are holding that button in. It doesn't make much of a difference, and it sounds silly to hear given that DMC as a whole requires holding R1 for so many things, and in terms of Nero, R1 determines whether we do Snatch or Buster.
As for weapons circling, it would only work if they limit weapons like in new GoW or LoS2, by reducing their amount to the amount you can use with d-pad. Which once again would be shame because it would mean limited amount of melee / projectile weapons. Honestly Ninja gaiden had many more weapons to choose from and used scroling, but it was never in the way and I think it's much better than MGR approach with "open menu to switch weapons", because it's the only definitive no go.
I suddenly wonder if a good middle-ground would be holding in the weapon switch button, but instead of cycling, the weapons would be assigned to the D-Pad. So up to four devil arms and four firearms could be equipped, then you just like, hold L2 to access the devil arms, and R2 for firearms.
The only thing I would like to be optimised from original Dante'S control scheme is his trickster moves. Because it would be nice to have dodge ability all the time. Or at least give some sort of roll move to dodge to sides.
Given how I was mucking about with where actions could go by removing Styles, all of Trickster's moves (and maybe Royal Guard's) could be mapped to O. Hell, they could even keep in the side rolls with R1+X and have those give more points in perfect avoidance, or something. I dunno, options~
I really don't like the style system that much. It was fun for a while but I haven't really warmed up to it for a long time. When I mention that, though, people get really defensive and angry that I'd date to say and then they post a combo vid and demand I tell the what other game would allow them to do all that but it's not practical nor is it necessary.
Reminds me of this little tid bit:
Yeah, the combat is deep but why does it have to be complicated? Overly complex also means inaccessible.
Ah! This was the exact picture I was trying to find, but I didn't have it on this computer. I think it might actually be mine haha.
I'm still just running up against the question of "Why Dante plays this way" aside from nostalgia. There is evidence of characters playing smoother (read: less complicated), and even from theorycrafting using those characters' controls there's a lot of untapped potential that could be utilized to get all four of Dante's Styles on his controls without relegating it to what it used to be on.
