I'm seeing a lot of opinions in here, and for the most part I agree with the both of you. There are, however, these two points
Rolling jump lock
I'm a big fan of the rolling jump lock actually. The only problem I have with it is, because midair speed was capped in Sonic 1 (and 2 I believe), you could be rolling real fast, jump, and suddenly you're not moving as fast.
Why am I a fan of the rolling jump lock? Because it makes successful rolling jumps feel skillful as fuck. Besides that, giving the player an out with the Insta-Shield means that there's time to bail if you foresee your roll-jump not working out too well. Win-win in my book.
So I say keep the rolling jump lock, just make sure that your ground speed is carried over into your air speed.
Super Peel-Out is (not) useless
The hell it is. It allows you to get up to speed in a manner in which you can maintain that speed on ground that isn't downhill. Compare that with the spindash, where once you're up to speed you don't have much control unless you jump. If I perform a peel-out and notice a moment later that that is a terrible idea, I can stop a lot sooner. Not to mention I can jump without a lock (and I actually prefer having the lock in place).
The peel-out adds another level of easy-to-get, hard-to-master complexity to Sonic gameplay. It definitely is not useless.