And yes, Hogwarts is an issue from the perspective of it not being fully themed.
How were they going to hide the building more without making the castle 1.5-3x bigger, and completely obliterating the scale of everything else around it? If they continued with the rockwork all the way around the castle would look smaller, if they made the castle bigger, you run into budget and space issues, you then also have to consider building the rest of Hogsmeade to a bigger scale, inflating the budget even further and introducing additional design problems, such as the height ceiling for the area, which If I recall correctly the castle is about as tall as it can be anyways.
I'm sure they tried to get the big show building hid the best they could. Some things really just aren't practical and sometimes there is more to consider in design of things then us fans care to think about when criticizing the design of things in the parks. I'm not saying I disagree with you, but I can understand there may be additional reasons why Hogwarts might have been okayed as is. Money, or budget for where Universal was when they were building Hogsmeade is and was a perfectly valid reason as well.
Back to HarmoniUS:
The budget for personnel and additional engineering and design work required to move the barges in and out of the lagoon each night... Right of the bat, That means you have to hire additional full time staff to move and install those things every day, probably easily doubling or more (and I honestly, absolutely believe the crew required for such a task based on photos we have would be easily more than double) the daily expenses needed to run the show. The equipment on those barges look extremely complex. Engineering them to move daily, and then hiring a crew to install them each day for the sake of being able to see across the lagoon for a few hours each day before they must be installed again is really an absolutely insane proposal, and by the look of the equipment on just that one barge, more than likely impossible for running this specific show, or at the very least adds the chance o greatly increasing the margin of error for misfires and things that can go wrong. It would certainly be additional complexity for little added value, and they even acknowledged the plain barges would be an eyesore by giving them active daytime fountains.
I saw someone mention "Weenies".
Using the fountains to hide them does not delete their function, one could argue that the fountains blocking your view across the park adds value to the discovery for the first time visitor as they make their way around the lagoon into a sightline that would allow them to see the various facades, pavilions, etc. Hiding weenies until you get closer to them, "The reveal" is also a design trick used to create atmosphere in parks, and it's one that Disney in particular is quite used to using. The fountains obscuring the view will add the value of exploration, discovery and mystery for the first time guest as they make their way around the lagoon. However well the fountains hide the show, the question of what they are hiding will also build excitement throughout the day and keep guest curious and intrigued about the show.
Really, this thread is killing me with how harsh the critique is for a brand new show no one has even seen yet, that isn't even fully installed yet, that we have 2 fairly plain pieces of concept art for. Give them a chance to build the darn thing, see if the show is worth altering the old sightlines before tearing them down doing so. I legit feel bad for anyone who worked on the show who might be reading through this thread... Or any of the other various ones across the message boards.
Before you decide to be so negative, I'd implore any of you to try and figure out the logistics and do a mock design, budget and your own R&D on a lagoon show, then mock program it and make it good. Let's see your concepts and let's judge how realistic they are to execute. If not, give the professionals some room before you talk so negatively about their product that isn't even finished yet.
It'll be one thing if it's an F&F scenario, but it really looks fairly impressive just from the equipment we see on the first barge... I will judge them by what they do with it, rather than based on the idea that they should've done something different that might've been technically impossible anyways.