From what I understand, the ROCOR WR attempts to restore Western rite services as they were before 1054, while the Antiochian WR makes use of current, post-schism ("the living tradition") Western traditions that are compatible with Orthodoxy, amending them where needed.
Exactly.
The real issue here seems not to have been the character of ROCOR's Western Rite liturgics (vs. Antioch's, etc.) but that Bishop Jerome took a short cut to grow his vicariate: receiving and ordaining
vagante ('independent Catholic') types quickly, without checking them out or teaching them. Nathan Monk was the last straw: a 28-year-old showoff priest wannabe who loudly quit everything after eight months.
(Sidebar: That's been going on as long as there have been
vagantes. A Western wannabe priest travels east and finds a trusting Eastern bishop to ordain him, then he turns on his new bishop when he goes home by going independent.)
So yeah, ROCOR had to clean house; the Western Rite is only incidental.
The smartest thing for ROCOR to do right now, now that it's clearly in communion with the rest of Orthodoxy (since union with Russia), would be for it to release its former WR parishes to Antioch. Everybody would save face.
And if these ex-WRs are understandably disillusioned so they leave Orthodoxy to join a Western church or start their own, regarding the criticism that they would be idolizing their culture, actually they would be re-enacting the founding of ACROD.