First, its not "you guys", we are a team. You're a critical part of this, as much as any of us are.
Second, we need to either have an IRL meeting or schedule a teamspeak conference.
Yes, the game should operate on a 3 button system.
Yes, the specials should vary, but not only in strength. Potentially direction could change along with other factors.
Personally, I don't want built-in insta kills. Blazblue did it well, but it doesn't fit the tennats of the EPIC system. Nothing should beat everything, and everything should be compartmentalized. The player should have access to components of the ultimate special of each character, but they have to figure out the timings and such on their own. I will talk more about this later.
Also, I'm pretty sure we got a real spriter, like someone who knows spritesheets. Again, more on this later.