Honestly I don't remember that well how they were received back then, even though I drafted/watched draft streams quite a bit during Strixhaven.
But it's always a very fine line imo. Sometimes having these extra cards can be good for variety and make you draft interesting deck archetypes the format usually wouldn't support. But the more powerful cards the higher the risk the format is defined by bombs.
Strixhaven did have the advantage that the extra cards were instants/sorceries which both meshed well with the theme and a lot of the cards were just efficient removal, which is much better for draft than big bomby creatures or enchantments.
