Does adding transparency and a blurred shadow to something you laid down pixel by pixel somehow make it not pixel art?
Of course! Now, it doesn't necessarily mean that they are bad GAME art. However, just because you use the pencil tool doesn't mean you're making pixel art either - if you use the pencil tool with opacity, or just sketch wildly without any set plan or control, then the pencil tool is the same as any other "dirty" tool - the computer is doing some of the work for you!
But...as much fun as it is to quibble over tool usage, etc, the bottom line is even disregarding the blurred shadows and glows, these pieces suffer from many of the same problems that a "dirty" piece suffers from:
l1 - Lots of unnatural black shadows
2 - Wide shadows with no color identity/info
3 - Small details that SHOULD pop don't, because they are over-AA'd
4 - Very little cohesion between palettes (even in the non-shifting areas) - that is to say, straight, unmixed ramps
A limited palette is not so much a crutch as it is a boost in most cases, especially when you are working at very small resolutions. In fact, many traditional acrylic and oil painters will only use a palette of 10-15 colors (with some washes) because this is an acceptable range of values for rendering. Even without the blurring and edge AA it looks like you're using maybe 25 or 30 colors on a single sprite, despite the fact that you could easily use skin tones to highlight the hair, share shadows between the blue and gray areas, use teal to add eye color, etc etc. While you may have executed all these things using the pencil tool, they are all hallmarks of sloppy non-pixel art and should be fixed!