Yes, more life in the synths. The ones in PUMA sound a bit flat to me, when compared. Sunny Lax has done some great things with them, no doubt, he has made the track itself alive. But to me, the opening synths in Ocean Green and Desire carry much more emotion on their own. The styles aren't that comparable, I'll give you that. But not even Majestic was; so what? I'm talking about the Top 20 uplifting trance tracks.
And we've fallen into the black hole of discussing what uplifting really is. Some of my recommendations don't compare to PUMA in the purest sense of the word, but stylistically I'd say it falls into the uplifting category. If we count only the tracks that really uplift you, we'll be left with 7 tracks, and of course PUMA would be in the top 20.
I could dig deeper and find some other stuff that I prefer which is more suitable for comparisons. Mind Circles, for instance, Symbols, Halo...
As for the rest of the block of text, nothing to argue about. You like PUMA, I prefer other stuff, so let's leave it at that.