Personally, I think the idea of "tier shifting" is goofy and a weird talking point because, invariably, balance patches essentially WILL do that, and I don't think I've ever played a fighter where a bit patch hasn't invariably shaken up how character matchups play out across the board. The very point of a balance patch is often to shake up who's good and who's bad, so of course you're going to see some changes across the board. I don't think that is the issue.
I also think a big problem is that talking points of players on the internet often revolve around what's annoying, but not what's actually insanely powerful and plays out in top level play. For example, Alien's f3 and b3 reaching super far are really annoying and a pain to block, but what consistently wins out is the ability to control massive amounts of screen space with u3 and d4 acid splats, which invariably cause you to lose health hit or block. Tarkatan, by comparison, also controls a massive amount of space by using various moves into Rekka, which are strong but have counters. The mixups may be annoying, but I would say that making them more unsafe or...I mean I guess not hit low or overhead (That seems dumb) would not really solve the issue that you can't move against Alien without taking a significant risk.
Mileena is the same thing, although it's highly likely that she's not as good as everyone thinks (Ironically enough, similar to Kung Lao). The issue isn't a matter of really good mixups or absolutely absurd sai projectiles that you can't move against, it's just a matter of movement being difficult because b1 is so good and forces you to have to tiptoe around it, which naturally opens up her tremendous anti air and pretty good projectiles. She can make you guess overhead and low in strings and yeah it looks annoying but when people play against Foxy, it looks like they mainly lose because they lost their composure and ate B1 instead of guessing wrong.
Takeda, yet again, looks like he relies more on the strength of his b1 staggers then actually hitting people with the b2 or sword pick up mixup. The real issue is probably more related to how good b1 and f1 do at controlling how you move vs. being able to guess high or low. The kunai being + is good, but it really only gets him another b1 or f1, so the bigger issue to me would be how much those two moves sort of force you into a specific position.
Sonya, too, controls wicked amounts of space AND It lingers, which makes getting away from her very, very difficult. Tossing a grenade up into the air and then just even trying to move in is overwhelming enough to make you sit there while she runs up and does an overhead or low. Again, I think toning down the grenade's hitbox or lingering aftereffect would do wonders to make her more in-line while keeping her very good.
Tl;DR: I do think a large part of tier discussion is stilted mainly because people largely ignore what's really good and focus too much on the "annoying" part. What's good, what is always good is not allowing the opponent to move. Kano, Johnny Cage, Ermac, etc. seem like characters that can control movement to a degree that is far more "fair" I guess than the characters above them. That's what should be aimed for.
