John,
This is a very interesting conversation. I am currently undertaking the ovate grade of the new course. There is no reference to the GD so far. The course as I understand it has been restructured to make it more accessible and easier to work with than the original course. I guess inevitably that will require a trade off. There has been no reference to arch angels either and we have discussed the lack of a banishing ritual before. I think i would find it interesting to work through the original version of the course once I have completed the new version. I can see that adding a lot of value.
Regards
Averagejoe