I never liked the old US Open-style rough; a narrow fairway surrounded by ultra-thick rough.
This year, it seems like they got the recipe just right, at least so far. The first strip of rough definitely plays tough, but not too tough. And the wider-than-usual fairways, plus the mild first strip of rough, makes for a much wider playable area.
And the outlying rough is just as tough and gnarly as one would expect, so the extremely off-line shots get penalized as they should.
And the scoring is still reasonable.