Sonic backlash was so bad that the director decided to redesign him.

Yes, that's right! Sonic the Hedgehog is being redone...
No, the movie will still have Cyclops in his Hop-styled Hellhole. The CGI character, Sonic will be forced to go through changes, due to the bad reactions to his design.

The only worrisome thing is the 6 month deadline and that it would mean overworked and underpaid animators.

This shouldn't have happened in the first place. When he was teased approximately 5 months ago in December people were appalled by the design; but as always the same excuses like "wait till you see him in motion!" were thrown. Now the so-called journalists are moving the goalposts by stating that this backlash will lead on to hatred of women and minorities and the usual crap.
Something about attacking Artistic integrity and other crap.

It looks more like Sanic than Sonic... right now I'm hoping is that the redesign is for the better and not for the worse. To be honest I kind of hope it gets delayed a little bit like I say March 2020 just to have enough time to do the redesign I have enough time to fix everything...