I received my delivery of both the new Smooth Pearl and Smooth Gloss the other day and have been able to do some comparisons. This is on an R800 with Epson inks and using custom profiles I purchased for the "old" versions.
The first thing I noticed was the the blank paper has a warmer look to it compared with the old.
I did a print of the same set of images on both types of Smooth Gloss paper. The images had a wide dynamic range but most colours were not particularly saturated, just a few areas of red & blue.
The colours looked identical and I could not see any evidence of a wider dynamic range as Ilford say. However, I do try to control that in the image before printing and I assume a new custom profile would be needed to take advantage of that feature.
I've never had any particular problem with bronzing, especially on the Pearl paper. My test print on Gloss was definitely better with the new regarding the gloss appearance, it was smoother and probably now close to what Epson Premium Gloss paper produces.
How did you judge the increase in colour gamut? It will be interesting to see a comparison of the gamut plots when the new profile is made.

I downloaded the Ilford profiles for this paper, there is no differentiation for the old & the new  when you choose what to download and the profiles names still have the "9" designation.
I would agree with that, especially from what you say about the change in coating technology.
Terry.