I don't know, I thought the presence of the Phantom actually clarified things a little bit. I'm always surprised by how many people are confused by the Hanging Man in the stateside Mansions, but if you don't know what you're supposed to be looking at I guess seeing a hanging skeleton from straight below isn't the optimal angle. Having the Phantom there made an quick read of the situation - that he was actively hanging the man. The man also wasn't a skeleton, he was actively being killed, which made it a little easier to recognize a person in it. Like I said, I expected to see a hanging skeleton, and instead was hit with a whole bunch of new information, and I got it immediately even at a young age. Not that I feel the Phantom should be added to the other Mansion stretch rooms, it just worked for that version.
I agree that things were murkier elsewhere in the attraction, but I thought that added to the mystery. It really left guests lots of room to piece together the puzzle themselves in the way they wanted. I find my own interpretation of the original Phantom Manor MUCH more interesting than the version we're spoonfed now that they've revised it. Like when a horror movie shows less of the creature rather than more - it lets the audience project onto it and makes things much more personal.
Now the Phantom just hangs out there with a noose in his hand, no longer hanging Melanie's fiance, or anyone. It's harder to read because the empty noose doesn't register as much of anything, and I thought being witness to a dramatic murder in a Western Ghost Story was much more engrossing than, like, an empty threat from a static figure. Not to mention the connotations possible depending on the guest experiencing it . . . the scene was more effective to me before in almost every way.
Although I respect what they were trying to do when they created it, for me Phantom Manor just didn't work to the level intended by the designers, or to the level that it needed to in order to be a fully satisfying experience.
Back in 2015 I knew exactly what I was supposed to be looking at in the PM stretching room, and even so, from where I was standing on my first ever ride through, it was hard to make out what was there. I saw dummies and legs before I saw anything else or could make out any detail, and the only illumination was from rapidly flashing, and short, lightning.
Elsewhere in the attraction, although it was murky, the biggest problem for me was that it simply too dark. It was to the point that I couldn't tell if the darkness was intentional or if it was supposed to be covering up the neglect that, in 2015, was still rampant at Disneyland Paris. I would look at the suit of armor outside the endless hallway and have no idea if it moved or not, or even if it was supposed to, because of the visibility levels were just that low. Things that weren't all that far from me that I would have been easy to make out on a Haunted Mansion were distorted by darkness.
Ultimately I'm pretty close to Foxxy's view on Phantom Manor: In her Mansion book, she says something to the effect of "people reride Haunted Mansion to discover new details, and people reride Phantom Manor to figure out what the heck they just saw." If I didn't know what the story was going into it, it would have been incomprehensible on first ridethrough and required several rides just to figure out what was going on. While rides shouldn't spoonfeed people what's going on as if they're complete idiots, I think they should strive for a certain level of clarity and narrative economy-something that Phantom Manor, for me, lacked. Given that, while I don't love everything they did with the refurb, I think that overall it was a net gain (at least from the POVs I've seen), and its less of a dumbing down of the attraction's mystery and more of a beneficial streamlining. Naturally, YMMV.
RE the noose in the redone stretching room: I believe the current empty noose is supposed to be a threat to the guests in the stretching room. It goes well with the restored Price dialogue: "Everyone is doomed at Phantom Manor: even you!"
