I remember that people were really excited about the rewritten script when it came out, but I've never seen the big deal about it. The original translation is fine (there's only one instance in which it's even remotely ambiguous in terms of game play, and in that case it's completely negligible) and has a lot more character in addition to being freaking hilarious. The new one just tries too hard on too many levels, the biggest one being that it attempts to "localize" or modernize a lot of the original humor and winds up making nonsensical and non sequitur pop culture references which, past and present, just don't make any freaking sense in the context of the game.
This is in evidence almost in the very beginning. When Bow agrees to help find Suzy simply because he discovers that Mina is gorgeous, in the original, the script goes...
<Bow>
Please, elder, leave it to us! We would be happy to help such a pretty girl
find her pet!!
<Elder>
...... You are a calculating man
Well, try your best
The retranslation is:
<Bow> How can I refuse a sweet face like that?
<Chief>*sigh* The same way you do everything else. Shamelessly.
The first one sounds like a genuine, cynical old man who is tired of fooling with these scoundrels. And it's actually funny. The second sounds like the annoying sidekick in a terrible anime. Which is probably exactly where the inspiration probably tends to come from for most of these fan retranslations.
Bottom line, the original is the most Kafka-esque script a game has ever had, and with a game like Breath of Fire 2 and its bizarre plot, I'd rather have weird and blunt than shiny and mass-produced. But yeah, it's a shame you haven't played the game through, it has some of the best characters and probably the best storyline in 16-bit RPG history.