Nothing I read in the last two/three pages is surprising; especially with the way massive budgets for game development goes where you have to build for the lowest common denominator to try to siphon up all the monies.
THIS THIS THIS
Been saying it for years. When you cater your games to the lowest common denominators (in order to make the most money) you end up with watered down, shitty games that are similar to other proven success stories of watered down, shitty games. You appeal to more people and make more money, but the games are worse overall (so that's why they keep doing it, because it maximizes their profits).
MMORPGs started going down hill in the early 2000's when proven successful MMORPGs started watering down the game to make it more friendly to the lowest common denominators. This started to appeal to more people, but the games are (at least to me) objectively worse and worse. They are more for the casuals, the unskilled, and the people who rage too easily and quit games. WoW is my prime example for this. Games like EQ and Ultima Online were very good in their heyday, but they started dumbing down the games, and WoW is what capitalized on the trend of these games watering down their content for casuals and raging baddies.
I don't see this trend changing any time soon, it's only getting more and more prevalent.