Heh, imo, the japanese soundtrack really does suck, with a few glorious exceptions, which contained guitar solos in them and such. But....classic instruments for an anime like DBZ? That definitely didn't go for me. But no more than Faulconer's music did.
Personally, I love the original Japanese score.
Orchestral music is a perfect fit for Dbz, it's epic and is incredibly effective at invoking emotions, I've never understood the pre-occupation some people have with for a fight to feel like it has any sort of impact, someone has to be thrashing a guitar.
I can understand why some people don't like it, it's more subdued than Faulconer's score most of the time, and yes, it is dated (@ J-Dude, the muffling is because the show was recorded in mono, and Funi's masters of the show have quite poor audio quality, if you compare Toei's remastered sets, it's still mono, but is far more crisp) but so is Dbz, it started it's first broadcast run in 1989, so of course the music is going to represent that point in time, which for me, is a great thing as in my opinion it carries so much more charm and emotional weight than electronic music ever could.
I found all the corresponding dub scenes except for one, these are some of my favorite scenes from the show.
*edit* I was going to talk about the American VA's vs the Japanese VA's, but this post is already longer than it should be*
Goku's 20x kamehameha against Freeza
(Japanese version)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOpNFwKNu68
(English dub)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTtL63yqCFE&mode=related&search=
Gohan turning ssj for the first time (I couldn't find the dub version)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2Zoqdlvmi0
Gohan turning ssj2
(Japanese verison)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkksoQ435Iw&mode=related&search=
(English dub)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZUX5hzbcUw
I think Faulconer's music during the 20x kaioken was adequate, but the Ssj2 transformation was nothing short of horrible, It sounded like they used one of those boring ambient tracks during it, I don't understand, because Faulconer had some tracks that would have suited it so much better.
Now music aside (and this is probably pointed the most towards you J-Dude) the reason fans of the original don't care for the English dub (and aren't terribly excited about the movie) is because the English dub isn't a translation (and Funimation state this themselves) it's a "re-versioning", I see the two as completely different shows, I for one perfer Goku as a simple naive hick from the mountains, not the American super hero vibe Funimation went for, they are completely different characters to me, now I can completely understand why people like the English dub, it's in their native language, and has had the Japanese themes and influences, pretty much written out of it (not to mention the way some characters were interpreted)
Now you stated earlier that being a "purist" like it was a bad thing, but honestly no matter how much dub fans hoot and holler about "elitist fanboys" the fact of the matter is they are watching a interpretation of a translation, and considering how complicated Toei made things when they started the Anime, dub terms and rewrites just add a whole new level of confusion to me.
Anyway, I probably had a point, but I understand that was largely ramble.