marie_m You can turn on showing battery percentage in the settings, it's showing for me.
OMG!!! Are they gone totally insane there in google or what?! It used to be so clean and now it's not even shows what it says it's should show (like battery percentage)...
Settings -> Battery -> Battery percentage (tick it on)
Is there any chance GOS can preserve the visual style for these who want it as it used to be? Or is it not maintainable etc?
Sadly the majority of the code in GOS is AOSP. The project can't maintain an entire operating system and simply increases the security and privacy of AOSP (building on top of it) instead.
If you really want customizability you could look into using a custom launcher instead.
I personally use Niagara launcher, which is quite different from how you usually use a phone. A common alternative for more 'standard' customization is something like Lawnchair 15.