One of these days, I need to actually try a dedicated trail shoe. Truth is, I spend too much time on the road (and too little time on trails) to bother.
The upper is the same material from what I've seen in stores. My only complaint about the v1 is that I don't like the plastic feeling upper. Otherwise it's a great shoe.
The slant has definitely been fixed. As for the upper being more flexible. I already found the shoe extremely flexible and did not notice any differences between both versions.