IMO, the root of Exalted's combat problems is lethality. It's too easy to create a situation where any hit is instant death. So there are lots of defenses that make you impossible to harm. So there are lots of ways to get around those defenses so fights can actually happen. And so the combat system is like an onion, where every layer is labeled either "You're invincible" or "You're dead." I think it'd starting fresh would be easier and more likely to get a functional final result than trying to peel back through "If we get rid of ping and piercing soak-monster builds are hard to beat, if we remove the DV caps you'll need to spam perfect attacks to hit enemies with high DVs..." and so on until you get to a place where a wide variety of builds can survive and fight just fine and not too many are unstoppable.