I think you're on the money by noting the difference between reading and watching.
If you watch, for example, Dragonball Kai, you'll notice how the story just blazes by. Compare that with the manga or even the original Dragonball Z, which had a shit ton of padding, awkward pacing and filler arcs, and you begin to see the problem with older anime shows in general, especially when adapted from a source. Sometimes they take too long to tell their story when there's a better, more efficient way to do it without losing any of the emotional potency from the visuals or the narrative.
Berserk, on paper, is easy to absorb because there are so many details in each and every panel. Every single image in the manga is a work of art painstakingly crafted by Miura.
But the anime doesn't need to be that. The anime doesn't need to take long, ponderous shots on each and every scene. I think that when people ask for that sort of meandering, ponderous visual aesthetic because 'that's how the manga is', they're being art fags.
The TV show is detailed and visually complex in its own way. The problem is that so many Berserk fans are so effete about their vision of the source that there's no room for interpretation. It's a combination of a small group of people bitching and moaning about what they believe the spirit of the manga to be and everyone else is either being shamed into agreeing with them or they're just jumping on the bandwagon because anime fans are some of the worst hive mind haters on the internet.
Show is great. Looks good. Well paced and doing exactly what it needs to do.