I remember Hendryk Schamberger, German Eurosport commentator and former Ice Dancer (10th at the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics), criticize Bobrova/Soloviev year after year because he felt they were too theatrical, and that their focus was too much on big theatrical costumes and fitting "posing" rather than technical difficulty and speed. He was thrilled when they switched to Zhulin and said that might be the change they needed.
Ilynikh/Katsalapov, in their first years, he kept on calling them "the future of Russian Ice Dance", and that it was "just a matter of time before they overtook Bobrova/Soloviev". He noted that they had great speed in their twizzles, just like Davis/White had even in their early days, and that "most said Davis/White were too wild and took too much risk of making a mistake in their beginnings".
Frenchie, talking to you is very interesting. Hendryk Schamberger has his own opinion, Maxim Staviski has his own opinion (a little bit different from Schamberger’s ones) and I believe many other ice dancing experts have their own opinions. By the way Zhulin and Morozov and Zueva and Sphilband and Krylova are ex ice dancers, and somebody of them prefers Virtue, somebody prefers Davis, while Linichuk said that the best dancers of all times are Domnina & Shabalin. While Evgeni Platov thinks that Torvill & Dean were the best even better than he himself (I also heard that Platov complimented Coomes & Buckland like very promising and improving ones). While Staviski thinks Virtue is old-fashioned, I believe that Zueva has a little bit different opinion…no, I am sure she has a different opinion.