I hear ya... I do miss the look of the old Swype but to be honest as long as its performing as good or better than the previous version then that is more my concern.
For the rooted community, there are "themed" Swype keyboards out there if you search around. I don't know any off the top of my head currently or I would post it but I have seen and read about them while surfing around.
Hmm. Will have to look. I just tried swype again after the alleged ics build where it worked before and thought it would work with the new voice. Doesn't. Book
I just uninstalled the system Keyboard application ( Android Keyboard). I just only disabled the voice command. Now the swype started to work. I enabled the voice command again. ( enable / disable of voice can be done from application--> input method)
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram