It's not really that they're resistant to change, or that they're somehow much more stiff now than they were in the Meiji days. In fact, the Japanese are and historically have been pretty flexible in terms of the customs and policies they imported. This was the case for thousands of years in their importation of aspects of Chinese culture. Their general model for this has always been a process of aggregating what they view as successful, considering which are compatible with Japanese identity, culture, and society, and morphing it into something distinctly Japanese in itself. "Westernization" is a misleading term for the Meiji period or really any other; to them it was just scalping good ideas (constitution, public education, etc.) and japanifying them. Before the West they did the exact same thing with China, and only switched to the West due to it seeming more successful.

Also, the Meiji period is often seen as negative by Japanese people but not because of its "westernization", but because of its association with the imperialism and fascism of the late 19th century to 1945.