I still think Splash Mountain without the tree stump on top is like Cinderella Castle without its tallest spire.
They can repaint and redress the rest of the structure, but that same structure was designed as one complete piece with each element scaled and put there for a reason. Cutting bits offs, even if they seem to only be a small portion, can throw the rest of it off quite a bit.
Now I do think the full tree with boat on top would have been a bit much and too large a replacement, but maybe some sort of crowning detail (not a literal crown like the one they did build lol), would have helped, even if the intent was to make the mountain look smaller (an unrealistic goal given the choice to keep most of it intact).