They just stated that the force experienced by crew on reentry would be 8g, while the force on a Soyuz capsule is just 4g. 8g is more than enough for a person to black out, this seems like a major disadvantage.
The difference between Orion and Soyuz is a question of speed; the EFT profile was supposed to simulate a "deep space" reentry, which is faster and steeper than a low-earth-orbit rentry.
You can see the difference in the Apollo program, using the same capsule but with different flight profiles:
http://history.nasa.gov/SP-368/s2ch5.htm - Table 2
Apollo 7 and 9 come in at 3.3G-ish, and the rest 6.5-7G-ish.
If it's actually 8G, that does seem a bit high; but Orion's actually a pretty huge thing, and denser than Apollo, so I guess that makes sense. And they only let the best trained very healthiest multiple-phD government employees ride the thing, so I don't think it's a big deal.
For example, the crews of several Soyuz missions experienced 8+ G's when the so-called "ballistic" re-entry mode occurred due to various systems problems.
Apollo crews returning from the moon commonly experienced 6 - 7 g loads during re-entry
The US space shuttle's entry profile was designed to limit decelerations to 3 g's (as was the ascent profile).
It isn't the speed, it's how you fly the ascent/descent profile. And yes, the conical Apollo capsule form (largely re-used by Orion) is a lifting body that is actually flown through the atmosphere.
http://www.chron.com/news/nation-world/article/U-S-astronaut...