I actually like the original more than the edits. Not a fan of the color choices in either or the edited pieces...
I do agree the level of detail for the foreground tree is a little too high, though. You could simplify it a bit, in my opinion. The piece overall looks very nice, I think. =)

but what do people other than my immediate friends think?

I think you copied an extremely popular, but flawed pixel art tutorial to make this.
I'd suggest doing some trees by studying from life. You'll learn a lot more. Studying pixel art is good for learning pixel techniques, but you'll pick up any bad habits the artists have, too, if you're just starting out and not looking out for them. The person you copied has a habit of making everything look very flat. Now your tree looks very flat. Google some pictures of real trees. Real life won't lie to you!

I know we're supposed to post a picture, but I really just wanted to drop in and congratulate wolfenoctis on being a goddamned drawing machine. I'm impressed with how often you stop in here, noctis, especially since a good amount of your "sketches" in here are finished paintings! =)

I'll edit this post with a drawing of my own a little later today. =D

Edit: Switched back to Open Canvas. Test dirt:

Nice edit, Salt. =)

The silhouette of the head doesn't change at all in the back, which is making the animation look weird. Like you just mapped a pixel art texture to a sphere, and rotated the sphere, instead of rotating something that's actually head-shaped, hahah.