I am personally among the many looking forward to Kabal's appearance. He was my preferred character back in MK3. It's true though that this was partly because of his fun to use combo system that utilized juggling akin to the previous game, MK2. That said, I usually didn't abuse the uppercut combo as much as the hook uppercut combo(ending in D+LP,D+HP) that was sadly underused and went unnoticed by most players. I don't find his appearance boring and the artificial respiration mask was actually quite cool in a techno sort of sense. If you remember he also had a distinctive sounding voice that like Sheeva's, stood out from the background noise in the arcades. I did personally however find him quite boring in Deception and Armageddon while other fans generally praised him. It seems to me that he will work great within this redefined system and I'm anxiously awaiting his reveal.
I think you also eluded to something that should be evident. Anyone who fights in dickies and cargo shorts is nothing short of a badass.