2 big reasons why the old portraits are worse than the new ones:
- The old portraits are wildly inconsistent, some of them are shot in the dark, some have weird lighting like Sana's portrait, Ayane and Ami are naked for some reason, Rin is crying in her portrait which is a big spoiler for someone new to the game, etc...
- Some of the new ones are more expressive of their personalities, not all but Maya and Miku are actually the 2 best examples. Sure we don't often see Maya in her shrine outfit but the outfit + blank stare in the new portrait expresses Maya's mysterious stoic vibe way better, compared to the old one which is just a random shot of Maya in the maid cafe. Same thing with Miku, the new one shows her energetic + athletic personality and the old one just looks like a random Koi character...
Also character growth and personality are two different things and character growth shouldn't affect personality most of the time. For example Ayane and Molly now are more mature, but still the same person and their portrait fits them in Chapter 3 as much as in Chapter 1. Changing profile pic between chapters would be a nice thing but not necessary. Between the weird rants and drms, Sel has already wasted enough time on dumb shit and I'd rather have him spending more time on the story