The creators of the Novus Ordo sacrificed some of the most beautiful prayers of the traditional Roman rite in its creation.
Here are just a few that I found inspiring as a new convert to Catholicism that were excised:
I found Psalm 42 at the foot of the altar to be a profound way of setting up the liturgical action. (i.e. the Mass is a mystical sacrifice, not a la di da social get together.) I think it is little wonder that the Anglican High Churchmen restored this Psalm 42 to their Protestant liturgy. Meaning, they saw it as a way of undoing the Protestant antipathy to the Mass as a sacrifice.
The priest's prayer before the Gospel:
Cleanse my heart and my lips, almighty God, who didst cleanse the lips of Isaiah the prophet with a live coal: so of thy gracious mercy vouchsafe to cleanse me, that I may worthily proclaim thy holy Gospel. Through Christ our Lord. Amen. (I feel this prayer emphasizes the holiness of the Gospel message and the priest's humanity far better than the
revised rite.)
The liturgical actions in the former rite that emphasized the Mass as an office of sacrifice to the Lord more than the current rite. The current rite, unlike the former, is capable of having a Lutheran interpretation to it.
Had the revisers of the Roman Mass wanted an authentically Catholic way of simplifying the liturgy, they could have looked to simpler forms of the Roman liturgy such as the Carthusian usage.
The spirit of the Novus Ordo is not in keeping with the spirit of the apostolic liturgies from my experience; that is, the vertical sense of the sacred. It is a product of the
spirit of the nihilistic and narcissistic 1960s and 1970s.
The rubrics of the traditional Roman Mass could have been modified to encourage greater participation per Vatican II, or other ways of bringing the liturgy closer to the faithful could have been accomplished. Other aspects, such as the restoration of concelebration could have been introduced to the 1962 Missal.
Perhaps a modest restoration, such as the reimplementation of the 1965 Missal for a transition back to Tradition could be an option. http://traditionalromanmass.blogspot.com/