The pops aren't Stellaris pops.
They already posted a dev diary specifically about Pops.As for the lead dev, considering Stellaris' massive improvements under him (though of course it had many flaws throughout the process) it makes me optimistic for Vic3. Reading the dev diaries so far make me even more optimistic. They definitely seem to be going for a proper Victoria 3; not "Stellaris: Victoria" or "Europa Universalis: Victoria".
Normally you would give them the benefit of the doubt, but this is modern Pdox. Imperator had bad mechanics, and they didn't even work right. After 2 years, I heard its somewhat playable, but its a frankenstein monster that proves Pdox will use the easy fixes first. Mission trees, limited buildings, civ flavor... whatever they cant make work they remove.
EU4 Leviathon. Stellaris. HOI4. I haven't played CK3 but I heard its CK2 casual. I don't know how there are still fanboys. I remember when criticism and suggestions were being banned left and right on their forums. They were down to like 3 posts a day, instead of hundreds. And Pdox spends more on influencers than they do QA. Pre sale review bans are the sign of a shady company.
Crusader Kings 3 was easily the most successful Paradox launch
ever by huge margins in numerous ways. Having played it myself, it's easily better than CK2 in pretty much every way. It's only really beaten in the raw volume of content department, but that's a given considering how long CK2 had for updates and DLC. CK3 was also a surprisingly smooth launch in terms of bugs and the like.
I'm glad to see that they're bringing over some of CK3's features to Vic3. Namely the tooltip system, which is a godsend for more information-dense games like these. 3D character models I'm pretty indifferent on.
EDIT: Not to say that I'm 100% confident that Victoria 3 will be perfect. It will of course have flaws. They will be very "Paradox"-esque flaws. But going by Wiz's (the lead dev) most recent work, the dev diaries, and Paradox's recent track record on launching new games, I'm very much optimistic.