I'm late on responding to the fun had earlier.
That Laura alt is disgusting and is so bad I refuse to play the character now.
Sex shit has no place in SF.
There is no "sex shit" in the game. There are scantily-clad characters though.
SFV has a ton of weird sex shit that wasn't in previous versions and I have no fucking clue what Capcom are thinking.
What "weird sex shit" are you talking about? Half-naked girls? Welcome to just about every Street Fighter post-SF1.
There's really no way to defend the Laura alt.
It's a sexy outfit and a lot of the male (and female too!) players who play these games like sexy outfits. Is it tasteless and pervy? Yup. Are there people who like that sort of thing? Yup. Are there people who don't? Yup. Can't please everyone? Yup.

The real head-scratcher to me is Capcom self-censoring R. Mika's super and Cammy's intro, but still keeping all the butt-floss outfits and the like intact.
Comparing Cammy to that alt is comedy.
How so? Cammy's leotard is rammed all up in her crotch and the character is animated in such a way that you get loads of ass and up-crotch angles. But I guess underboob shirts are worse.

Comparing Cammy to that alt is comedy.
Why ? If the discussion is SF depiction of women, I don't see why it wouldn't be relevant.
It's more of a footnote than anything anyway. I haven't followed SFV (or IV, but I kinda played it however) enough to make a qualified judgement over any major change on this issue, beyond my opinion on the costume itself.
EDIT : If it is the 2D/3D thing... Yeah maybe.
In SFV you see ass cheeks, camel toes, underboobs, nipple prints. Various camera angles, bouncing boobs. This is pretty wildly different than SF2 Cammy. You're thinking of just the design. By itself, the design of Laura's alt is just bad. But combined with everything else? There's more to it that makes it ridic and pushes it face first into embarrassing territory.
In SF4, you see ass cheeks, camel toes, nipple prints, camera angles, and SSF2 Cammy totally had some sprite animation giving you the full view. Still have an old GameFAN? Crack one open and look at the screens they used to showcase.

Boob/butt bounce and ridiculous outfits/proportions? All stuff that started with sprite-based games in the 90s. It's nothing new.