I don't buy it. The neutral is different, with crush counters and stubby hitboxes on normals, but it's there. You can still whiff punish, counter poke, and space like any other game.

I will say whiff punishing is more anticipatory/read based than reaction based in 5, but you can still do it.

Also this has been around in almost every game vs. Sim. Here's an example in 4.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qlAaEQo0L0

You could always counter poke or whiff punish Sim's buttons like that. This doesn't prove there's a lack of neutral in 5.