Personally, my brain can cope fine with the non-iso sprites in the iso-drawn world. What bothers me about 7c's pic above is the fact that the sprites look like they were drawn by different people. I know that they
were drawn by different people, but that's not the point. They don't look uniform.
Specific points that come to mind: colouration in the Humans vs. Dwarves: the dwarf's clothes use significantly fewer colours than a human equivalent. The eye styles are also different (this is probably the most glaring of the errors).
The animals also appear to be washed out or faded and not drawn with the same colour intensity as the other sprites.
Personally (and I would like a final word from a dev on this lengthy topic), I would rather have a complete set of 2D, uniform sprites at this stage in the game than go through redrawing all that we've done. I love the styles and I love the gestures of the "current" sprites (that's not to say they won't change).
As for object facing direction, it should be a piece of cake. Each chair can simply check in a radius of 1 around itself for a table. If a table exists, draw the sprite in the appropriate direction. Similarly, creatures can change face by tracking their own movement. If 1 frame ago I was East of where I am now, draw sprite facing West, else draw facing East.
Am I the only one that's bothered by how many passable tiles Stonesense has that look like they're impassable? Trade depot and tables are the main offenders, I think.
Trade depot needs its own unique sprite combo (like the carpenter shop/still) rather than a mashing columns into an X shape.
Also dwarf tits creep me out.