I dunno where you are getting this coup narrative, but the NCSoft layoffs of arenanet happened in 2019, long before EoD and the current leadership is Colin Johanson and Josh Davis, long time employees from gw1 days.

As for your “coup” examples, let’s break them down.

1. The wedding outfit is literally the only outfit that does this. You are also comparing a one of kinda outfit to pieces are armor, something the community wanted.

2. Emotes? Really?

3. Are you saying not relying on the cash shop, a near constantly criticized system, …is bad? I too want a big expansion that touches on everything, but HoT was widely criticized for its unliked WvW map, unliked PvP mode, and guild halls are currently forgotten content. At least now Anet has made plans to look back at older systems and refresh or improve them, just that it won’t be done in one big chunk, which seeing how HoT ended up…may be for the best.

4. I won’t really defend Gayala or Silent Surf but that strikes me as current leadership shifting from a supposed Season 6, straight to expansion instead. A similar messy shift from Living World only back to expansions that occurred halfway through Icebrood.

To be fair, I liked the Expansion to Living World Season to Expansion pipeline, but hey times change.

Ah the old class homogenization. Do mesmers steal? Do guardians burst? Do thieves have a pet? Anet has always been about playing whatever class and being able to play the way you want. This is still in line with that goal. If I wanna bring quickness to a group, I have way more options per class than I ever have.

Despite my arguments against your points…I still expect many people to be disappointed and are rightfully concerned, as this new expansion will be slow going. We won’t get all the cool stuff on day 1. It’s a change of pace that people are not used to. But I expect people to look back when it’s all said and done and generally like it overall.