Comparing the latest version to the previous I was using the graphics looks worse. Took both screenshots with default settings.

First the "downgrade" on clarity: seems tied to fog, I'm trying to fiddle with the fog settings but can't replicate the look of the older version. Yet the decision on the look of fog in this aspect is arbitrary of the creator (if this change was done on purpose), so it might not even be considered a downgrade. I don't know if the sharpness or TAA were changed and contribute to the blurriness.

Then the lighting: shadows, like under the leaves, don't look as good. Changing the SSS mode to "LabSSS only" makes it similar to the older version but it still looks worse.

Lastly, rain is barely visible.

Anyway setting SSS density to 2.0 seems to fix the shaded areas, and generally the shader looks better than the older version.
Rain also seems to be visible only in certain lighting conditions that could mean it's acutally better and more realistic.
This shader is beautiful.

Edit: after looking up what's SSS I understood what I was tweaking and what's happening. After tweaking things and understanding the changes I realized why certain changes were made and no longer see much downgrade with the new version. I'll keep this here just in case it could be helpful.

the visual change to the fog and rain is because of one thing; i changed bloom
the "bloomy fog" effect uses bloom to make it look soft, and hazy. and rain drops exist exclusively as bloom.
i plan to do something about this, as i do not like how the new bloom looks in this scenario.