Owlbear's amazing until you're in small spaces, which is when I love sabretooth.
I'd like to suggest maybe we're painting is a bit blacker than it is. My "default" playstyle here is three druids (at least one moon, usually one level of wizard, and another or rogue) and a cleric and you've options for days.
My favorite moment is the prison break sequence where the entire toolkit comes in handy (summons, various land druid configurations, utility shifting, longstrider etc.) within six turns. The build diversity is staggering.
That said, I don't miss the elemental forms as I almost never use them -- I'd much more happily have access to fewer forms if they were all fleshed out as well as owlbear and maybe sabretooth. And the shapeshift items working. But I'm getting a big "grass is greener" vibe and it overshadows what druids do so well -- it's easily my favorite version of them short of Pillars of Eternity.
