I believe those were Japanese casuals. I'm thinking the people at the loketest will be a different kind of beast, especially because of people from other games curious about DOA will probably try it.
No, I think it was the competitive players in Japan that didn't favor these things. I forget who it was I spoke with (it was sometime early this year), but talked about how the japanese players favor the 50/50s (the randomness of DOA4) over guarantees and an offensive ground game.