As a former GW1 player, I detested the Silent Surf zone. Elite skill capturing was important to me, but this area was abysmal. Hope the fractal rectifies that memory!
They do say outright in the newsletter that it will "deliver a tighter gameplay experience while still providing exciting story content", so it sounds like they learned from Sunqua.
Also, Sunqua CM actually helps with the feeling of "dragging" because it skips you immediately to the final boss fight! You should give it a try if you can, it's a fun fight.
Molten Furnace was also somewhat short, then Anet turned the boss into a invuln frame wait fest. I'll believe it when I see it, their boner for prolonging everything via invuln frames and cinematic phase transitions has been tiresome for years now. Fucking Fraenir shows off that totally awesome animations every single bloody day.