If by Ezra Church you have in mind Hood's plan of attack scheduled for July 29th, then I must agree with you about there being little difference between that and the one for July 22nd. As far as an explanation for what happened, here's one that should be acceptable.

Albert Castel, Decision in the West: the Atlanta Campaign of 1864, observes on page 435 --

Historians will blame Hood for this slaughter. The true culprit is Stephen Lee. Disregarding his instructions and ignoring subsequent orders, he attempted to crush Sherman's supposedly vulnerable right flank with impromptu and disjointed attacks by his own and Stewart's troops long after the failure of the first one demonstrated that they stood no chance of success -- the exact duplicate of his conduct two weeks earlier at Tupelo, from which experience he obviously has learned nothing. What he should have done is what Hood directed him to do -- simply keep open the Lick Skillet road for the passage of Stewart's forces, which he could have accomplished easily enough by driving back Logan's skirmishers, then establishing a defensive line northeast of the road. It is extremely unlikely that Howard would have attacked, much less broken through such a line. Also, since Logan's main force was a half-mile from the road and unable to see it because of the intervening forest, the Union artillery could not have prevented Stewart from using it, as in fact he did. Lee's attack served no necessary purpose and should never had been made.

In Castel's words, Ezra Church amounted to nothing less than a "bloody fiasco." Had S. D. Lee been elevated to senior command two years earlier, the war would have ended much sooner with just as many Southern losses, and far less Northern bloodshed.