It really goes either way. The IND stations are great with their trademark full-length mezzanines. Sometimes, the mezzanine wasn't needed, though; a lot of them are just flat-out abandoned on the G.

My takeaway from this is that careful planning and analysis is necessary to decide what sort of station design is required. There is no one-size-fits-all answer, as many replies suggest there is, so it's not obvious to me that the MTA screwed this up.