I've yet to see anyone other than you, trying to tie the character designs of X together with your hatred of Saga. Even then, it was only Saga 1 that had the artstyle that you so clearly hate, it changed for each of the next 2. Most of the complaints about the faces are from people who haven't played any of them and incorrectly label Blade as a "series" that they never played and think the artsyle is new, or have made it known that they just don't like anime.
It's also not safe to assume that X will continue with how Blade's characters were. We know next to nothing about the story and how the characters will play out in it, something that we won't know until people start leaking spoilers from the Japanese release. I'd honestly say that it's very doubtful that this game won't have "obnoxious whiny garbage" or "generic emo jrpg protagonist". Fuck we haven't even heard the voices in a language most of us can understand yet, these characters are going to be more than the "dolls" that so many seem to think they look like.
I dont hate the designs, hate is a pretty strong word. I dont particularly like them, but I can totally deal with them just fine, but I totally understand the reactions people have to them, Ive seen it every time they are used, Im not going to gaslight them by telling them theres nothing polarizing about this style, its just them, and that this exact same situation hasnt cropped up before.
When Takahashi calls the 'Whiny obnoxious garbage' with the 'whiny emo jrpg protaganist' style storytelling, and I quote, 'a dead end' in design and storytelling, and talked about how people 'Didnt like these whiny unhappy characters', and then his experiment in his new style of design and storytelling is a huge success, and his non whiny, not melodramatic main character is in smash bros, and now hes making a much bigger game with the same name...
Yeah Im pretty confident in what I said. There will be no Xenosaga level melodrama in Xenoblade X. Thats a 'dead end' according to the person whos directing these games.
And I couldnt be happier. Gears and blade are much better games than the saga series. And gears was only half a game.
Although its hard to make a good game series with a meddling publisher constantly trying to stick its hands in everything and firing large chunks of your staff for not doing what they want.