Not really. Def. not 80% of the dance. The only thing that was kept the same was the signature "dhoom taana" step. And that wasn't even the best part of the performance. There were lots of other classical and bollywood dance steps incorporated into the dance which made it enjoyable for me. This performance wasn't exactly a never seen before types...what made it enjoyable for me was how the background dancers were used and the individual dance steps. Shampa did put in a lot of challenging and creative dance steps into the overall dance performance. And of course Sushant's energy and personality he gave to the performance, took it to another level! That's what made it stand out. Sushant totally owned the dance floor with his energy in that performance!! Sushant and Shampa also kept the energy and mood of the song very well. It wasn't a 30 marks wala performance definitely, but out of all the performances that day, I enjoyed this one the most simply for the spirit these guys brought on stage.
I think on the outside this performance did indeed look almost the same as the original, but the dance steps and use of background dancers was different. Minus of course the dhoom taana step. This song requires bollywood as well as classical steps and the nature of the song/energy was kept intact by Sushant and Shampa. They didn't do anything out of the box with this song, but that's what bollywood is! It's one style where you don't exactly have to go out of the box. If you look at it, in Indian dance reality shows, all performances are on bollywood songs only. So what makes a "bollywood" performance different from all others? I think with plain old bollywood dancing, you don't have to worry about a specific style or anything...it's just about the dance steps and keeping the essence of the music which was done well by Sushant and Shampa. I think these guys actually captured that true filmy/bollywood theme the best out of all performances. These guys and Chang and Marisha too actually.
And you're right, the judging criteria should be the same for everyone. But what the judges didn't convey in comments they did reduce in the marks. Dancing wise this performance was energetic, filmy, true to the theme and entertaining to watch. Maybe creativity wise you are feeling cheated but that was accounted for in the marks I think. Waisse, generally I think the judges have been pretty lenient these days towards all contestants.
And you really can't expect everyone to dance on the same song now? That would be pretty monotonous and boring to watch don't you think? ;)