I played a NH D-55 this past Saturday at a shop in Louisville, KY. The place was getting ready to shut down for the evening when I spotted it hanging on the wall, only had time to pull it down and fingerpick it for a whole 3 minutes or so.
I have to qualify my remarks by saying that my experience with D-55's is extremely limited. I have only even seen 3 of them in my life, a Corona, a Tacoma, and the new NH, and I have never played a Westerly D-55 so I have no frame of reference to that animal.
My general impression of the NH is that it is the equal of the Tacoma I played, and somewhat better than the Corona. Workmanship of the NH was flawless, a beautiful instrument. I am reserving judgement on the open tuners...I know that several high-end makers are using the open tuners, I prefer closed tuners, but these seemed to work very smoothly. This one had the new style pickguard in tortoise...I prefer the traditional shape, the color doesn't bother me.
The guitar had great tone, maybe a little bit restrained, but again, I was fingerpicking only, and didn't lay a pick to the strings. Strumming with my fingernail against the strings made it sing out well with good volume. I would think the guitar would open up well with some playing time.
Again, take my comments with the limitations I've noted in mind, but the NH D-55 I played seemed to be a really nice piece.
ky