Re: Russia Wharf
This is one instance where I think the old bracing design would have been a beneficial element. It's a basic, identifiable, not-too-confusing shape and form for an aesthetic transition from the old to the new. It implies that some interesting engineering feat is needed to bridge the old and new. The current design transition is too plain and too uneventful and too timid. You've got a dramatic group of older buildings, all different, but looking as if they belong together, then unified by what's on top of them, sorta.
Not that either of these examples for Russia Wharf will always work or fail for any other project of this ilk. See the Hearst Tower in NYC, for one--eeech.