Awesome, thanks for the link. Looks like the changes added do not affect Hard mode, so I'm glad to at least still have the chance to experience the original, crazy end, even if the current end is still pretty nuts.
I'm sure the re-balancing is whats best for the game overall, but I tend to like things that would probably turn most people away. Dying 100+ times to one difficulty spike in an otherwise easy game sounds like something I could either love (Sonic speedrunning is easy until you have a pixel/frame perfect input that kills the run) or hate (Batsugun milking on stage 4 being harder than anything in the 4 Loops of the game by far).
It works out well, as now I can play the fixed version, and follow that up with a Hard mode run to see just how mean the game can get... assuming I make it through the normal game.