I liked the elevator trips, sure it was mostly because of the random dialogue, but it was a relaxing point in between everything that had to be done.

The elevator trips are relaxing and fun the first time through the game.
After that, they mean I don't go back to the Citadel until AFTER the Krogran-factory go boom :p

Haven't picked this up yet (but will eventually), but they got rid of the armors????? You mean I can't dress people up in ridiculous bright orange Quarian armor anymore? That sucks. Other than that the whole inventory system can go to hell, I'm fine with getting rid of the 10000000x pieces of pistols that I can't sort by any relevant statistic while selling or equipping, or be able to see everyone's load-out at once as to balance equipment across the entire team.

I, on the other hand, rode the elevators several times with different characters because I wanted to hear what they discussed.
They could at least have had a switch for "loading screens=miss dialogue/elevator rides=longer wait".

I haven't installed and loaded up the game yet, but from what I gather, instead it's that you chose a single armor that everyone will wear, same with ammo/weapon upgrades.

Actually everyone has their own distinct armor/outfit thing. Once a squadmate becomes loyal they get another personal outfit option that is usually more badass than the first one. The upside is that a lot of attention has been put into the two outfits each character has, and they are a lot cooler than the vast majority of ME1 armors you could equip. The downside is that you can't put any armor you want on any character. Jacob's is boring, Shepherd gets a few more options, Samara's is pretty hot, Subject zero's is exploitative, Mordin's is really cool as is Thane's, Grunt's is typical Krogan and so on.
In Miranda's case, it's all good however. She is ridic hot yo.

So, can you switch back to the first one? With the seemingly most common meaning of "badass", I'll probably prefer the other.

I don't know man, I've skipped them before, I guess it's just like dialogue where you can skip some, but you can't skip others.you can change the color of shepards armor.

You can get upgrades that will boost your ammo capacity, and if you equip them all you will end up with around 75% extra. Add in some damage and accuracy upgrades and it becomes far less crucial to pair a particular weapon type with a particular encounter. I used assault rifles and the SMG for most enemies after about the middle of the game because of this.
You can change back and forth at the touch of a button. Additionally, whichever one you choose will be the one that squad member wears in cutscenes and on the ship and everything, not just when in your party.

you can also change his helmet, and those actually have different bonuses. i think that's the only traditional armor item in the game.

Actually, excluding the DLC suits, all the armor is pretty traditional.
You have different cuirasses, different pauldrons/gauntlets, different greaves/boots, etc. It just so happens that you don't get the fun hodge-podge of horribly mismatched armor sets :p
And it isn't that the loyalty outfit is necessarily more "badass". it is just that it uses Cerberus colours (I think). They all tend to be black and orange.
I noticed because Mordin actually gets a Cerbeus logo on his shoulder.

I meant traditional as in each different helmet has different stats and can be equipped independently of your other gear. Are there other pieces of equipment that you can change that have different stats? I have the preorder armor and you can't switch out parts of it so I haven't done any tooling around in the inventory stuff.

Legion's is white, which really makes the N7 armor pieces stand out.
each different helmet doesn't, as there are two helmets with the same stat that are just aesthetic differences.

Every item you buy for your armor (again, excluding the DLC Armor) has different stats. Stuff like +5% Shield Recovery or whatever. And it is all independent of other gear (again, excluding DLC armor).

uh, you're forgetting about the Dr Pepper dlc armor. ;)
recon hood +5 weapon damage, umbra visor +5 power damage, sentry interface +5 shields
here is what they look like

After 29Hours I finished it and that was ignoring a lot of side quests. Starting a second game now with some bonuses for finishing it. Yes its a very good game.