I can see maybe why the city chose the different cantilevers. Yes they look weird, but I think they chose it because it blends in more with the stop lights and such. I don't know if that's a good thing or not.
That PED crossing looks a bit overkill with all them 12X20 Harmon LED's... 2 WCH E bells, and 4 Crossbucks... That other crossing is quite clever since you basically have a cantilever setup for both the traffic and the crossing. Though I think the lights are too close together.
I think the reason for the tall masts is I think those were once Cantilevers. You can see 2 horizontal rings undereath the WCH E bells that would represent perhaps OLD Cantilever bars, maybe like the WCH Setup. I can't determine another explanation for the reason those masts are so tall other than they were once cantilevers.
My guess... and it's just a guess... is that the gates are rather close to the "cantilever" signals, and the gates are rather long. Maybe they wanted the wind guard up higher like that to keep the gates from blowing into the other signal??