Well I just went and played VF2 for a while. And yes, you are right that it isn't as slow as most other 3d fighters that generation. It's still very dated, though, in controls, movement, gameplay, etc. It's not bad, but I don't like it much, either. It still has that weird movement (those jumps...), lacking 3d-move options (via moves only, not up/down), the style of play is different from newer 3d fighters, etc. Fighting in VF2 is very different from a newer game in a lot of little ways, and the newer games mostly play better in my opinion. And of course, like all VF games I find it kind of boring. I like stuff like fireballs, ridiculous bosses with their crazy backstories, etc! Removing all that stuff makes VF worse than other (mostly 2d) fighting games, not better. And seriously, VF1/2's jumping is weird, in a bad way. I don't really like that most later 3d fighters have almost no jumping, but VF1/2 moonjumps aren't much better. Hitting the opponent can be fun, but it's too limiting compared to newer fighting games. I know some people prefer VF2's style, but I am not one of them.
Oh, I don't know what you are talking about when you talk about crouch dash, I don't play VF games much.
Last, the issue of round lengths. Speed and round time aren't necessarily connected -- regardless of game speed, if single hits are going to do as much damage as they do in games like VF or Tekken, rounds are going to be very short, and I really dislike that style of round-length design! VF rounds aren't short because the game plays fast or slow, they are short because hits do too much damage. I know that you don't want rounds to go on forever either, but really dislike how short the rounds are in many 3d fighters, and VF is the game that started that. Playing VF2 for now just instance, there are way, WAY too many single hits that do 50% damage. That much damage should be something only for tough combos, super moves, and the like, not regular grabs! That's ridiculous, and I think it's kind of bad design. Tekken is a series which I have always greatly disliked (Tekken 3 is the only Tekken game I've played I would give a passing grade to, and it's barely above average at best -- and I have Tekkens 3, 4, 5, and 6), and one of many reasons why are the way-too-fast rounds that series has. I like the style of 2d fighters like Street Fighter or, even better, SNK games the best; those ten-second rounds you see in Tekken or VF 1 and 2 are way too fast. DoA1 rounds can be too fast as well, but I think they do balance things a bit better in the later games of the series, though it's still a lot shorter than SNK game rounds. I know 2d and 3d fighting games have different paces, but I like the pacing of the top 2d fighters more than that of the top 3d fighters.
Sure, but isn't the DC version supposed to be hugely improved over the original arcade release?
Soul Blade is slow, mediocre looking, and incredibly boring to play. Just staying awake until the matches end is a struggle sometimes, to only slightly exaggerate... I do think there are times that I quit before finishing a match because of how boring the game is. I may find the VF series boring as well, but even the worst VF game isn't as boring as Soul Blade. I don'[t know if I can think of anything positive to say about Soul Blade other than that it plays. It's definitely a game I PS1 fans like to massively overrate, both in gameplay and its CG intro; I remember people in college insisting that the Soul Blade intro looked so cool at the time. I don't see it, but I don't see much quality in the game either. Soul Blade isn't TERRIBLE, but it's below average, really bland, and isn't any fun to play. At least it did well enough to get a sequel, though...
... That's kind of crazy. Fighters Megamix is okay but not great; even just in the fighting game genre there are many, many 2d fighters on the Saturn better than any pretty much any 3d fighter of the generation... 2d fighters on the Saturn hold up. 3d, not really. (But at least that's better than the PS1 where neither kind does!)
I don't think I'd have many 3d fighters in my fighting game top 10 either. It'd certainly be almost all 2d games, since I definitely think that 2d fighting games are better than 3d ones. (Oh yeah, and SNK is awesome. Last Blade 2 is my favorite fighting game. And my favorite Capcom fighter is CvS2, a game that has a lot of SNK characters in it...)