vastly.inferior.
I couldn't disagree more (except the part where future themes do blow especially hard). Now, the man didn't really have much choice in the matter and did the best he could considering all the past themes were pretty much welded into the game when it came from japan...his best is certainly not bad music it's just not nearly as good as the original version overall...and on a more personal gripe pretty much all of the themes are wildly unfitting with the stages themselves.
also, on the topic of sonic games, the sonic 3D blast jap/eu (gens) version of the soundtrack was oh so much better than the na (saturn) one.
example
Gene gadget zone (saturn): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOxK6wIBe9c = Corporate Powerpoint Presentation
Gene gadget zone (gens):
= Awesome