Nothing prevents you to use the RTP audio from previous versions. Also, you might be interested in knowing that a remastered RM 95 soundtrack is on sale now.
There are three reasons why you'll never see a side-view system by default ever again. First is, front-view is actually popular, especially in Japan, which is the program's main target audience.
Second reason is the ease of modification. The default battle system is very bare-bones, hardly more than a text-based battle with minimal visual elements. It's because of this simplicity you can see so many different battle systems made by scripters. It's much easier to add options than remove unneeded junk and the more complex the built-in systems are, the more unneeded junk you'll find.
Third reason is a matter of graphical resources. Side-view is very sprite-intensive. It's easy to find one static front view battler and put it in a game. It's much more complicated to sprite a complete animation sheet for side view and definitely beyond the majority of user's abilities. Licensing a bunch of side view sprites would also cost much more to Enterbrain.
Now, you might say "just use charsets and static enemies". Well, no. There's such a thing as consistency, and the "easy way" is definitely not something to put in the core engine.
RPG Maker, by default, has the goal to provide the basics of a RPG. A crafting system isn't something to be considered 'basic' and there are many possible interpretations of what a crafting system should be. This is the kind of system users will make scripts for anyways, so it's useless to include it.
tl;dr Eb! provides you an engine with the basic RPG elements. Making the game unique and sophisticated is the developer's job. YOUR job.