Hello there!!
VIT chennai is a new campus. Mine is the third passing out batch.
When I first entered the campus in 2012 I really was not happy seeing it. Most of the blocks were under construction and the climate for sure was too hot. But by the time I reached third semester a lot of development was seen. The appearance of campus was made attractive. Now the campus is almost fully constructed except for two new blocks.
Coming to the rules, at the beginning some of them seemed to be pointless but its okay we got habituated and had fun even while following them. For example for girls the intime for hostel is 7pm where as in vellore its 8:00pm, all such might seem unfair but after all its the management who decides the rules.
About college fests there has been a lot of improvements in organising fests. At first there was only intra college fests but in 2015 they are both (technical nd cultural) made inter college and were well organised too.