Thanks for providing a direct link to the Paizo post; I'm not a big fan of RL.
The new champion seems cool. Finally they won't be locked in by alignment on top of the actual oath that they follow. Seems a bit more similar to a 5e Paladin now. But Paizo is still stuck on forcing certain kinds of character to be "holy" and "unholy", which is still very limiting. I wish they would open their minds a bit more.
I mean, they are religious defenders. Knights Templar and all that. That's the core concept and fantasy they're aiming for.
Guardian Sorcerer or Guardian Oracle or something probably fits other concepts better.
They don't need to be that though. Honestly for all of 5e's flaws, I think one thing it does far better is that there is a clear distinction between Clerics and Paladins. Clerics get their power from religion, Paladins get their power from swearing an oath. Religion doesn't need to be a part of it at all.
Like, if you told me there was a class called "champion" in Pathfinder and I knew nothing else about that class, I would assume it's the champion of a cause, not of a religion.
According to the post the holy or unholy sanctification is optional or do I misread it?
The post says that certain subclasses force one or the other.