The 9-panel grid didn't bother me too much unless it was the same picture shown repeatedly over and over - which is something he did frequently. But I did not care for his art style at this point.
As for the characters, I was also disappointed that he brought all these new characters in and ignored so many classic Legionnaires. I remember seeing this poster (in issue #12 or 13, I believe) and realizing for the first time that they had no intention of rebuilding the entire Legion, just about ten former members and a slew of uninteresting new ones.