I mean, Aokiji still has his quads. He also seems to move through the atmosphere becoming ice, rather than using his legs to move forward, as every time he moves, you can see a trail of ice and frozen air.
So saying he gets "heavily" nerfed losing the lower part of his leg which he can replace with a solid ice prosthesis is quite a stretch. And as
@ConquistadoR pointed out, you can take both Akainu and Aokiji when they were at their best, still being nigh equal. And that fight would look similarly now. You could argue that now Aokiji regained his will power, even more so because he follows his own path.