Well I don't know too much about the Mana deck, but if they use standard but recolored court cards, that's still the no-effort, lazy way out. Recoloring takes a few minutes, and even an amazing recoloring job takes an hour or two, max.
I'm guilty of the shortcut myself on the Vortex. I launched the campaign without doing custom court cards because it costs significantly more to do them. Then, a few days before the Kickstarter, I opted for recolored court cards. I hated them, and went for a modified, standard court card look, which took me over a month to do. Time constraints forced me into a corner. However, that does not change the fact that had I gone for full on custom court cards, the deck would have been far better.
Now I am going for custom court cards and no surprise it's taking a lot longer to get a single card done. Look at the Seasons deck. Doing custom court cards pushed back the launch by months and months.
You want to tell me the Mana deck has anywhere near the amount of effort put into it that the Seasons does? You'd be mistaken by man hours, and I would argue by looks.
You want to tell me the Mana deck wouldn't look better with custom court cards and faces? I'd argue you would once again be mistaken.
Take a look at the Galvanic deck - after Sean announced that he will be launching the next Kickstarter with custom faces, support for the deck went up.
Look at the Artifice and the Infinity decks, arguably some of the most gorgeous cards on the market right now. We all agree beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and many people may actually prefer the recolored court cards as opposed to custom ones. That's fine, and there is nothing wrong with thinking that way. However, facts are facts, and no custom court cards/faces is a lazy way out. It is also not art when you have a recolored deck. That's not a bad thing, far from every deck has to tout artistic integrity, but I wouldn't compare the Monarchs to the Infinity in terms of design any day. They are in a totally different ball game.