My thoughts:
a) Immolation Nerf - a usable idea, although I really would have preferred Phoenix going to 8.
b) Deflag Nerf - bleh. This hurts every other element much more than it hurts fire (so much for deflag in novabows). Kind of strange change.
c) Ash Nerf - Ok, this makes some sense at least.
d) New backgrounds: <3
e) Stripes: </3. Look really really ugly.
f) Shards: <3 Void, SoG is nice, SoD doesn't seem like much of a change, <3 SoR, </3 SoS, </3 SoSe, not sure about patience yet.